THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


From  the  Library  of 
BENNEHAN  CAMERON 

1854-1925 

Presented  by 
his  daughters 

Isabel  C.  Van  Lennep 

and 

Sally  C.  Labouisse 


.  \S                                \/  UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CH 

y^/  iiiiiiiiiiiiii 

r  ^  r  00022226477 

) 


3   QoLx^-      0,     QcX/YVULTU^-yL 

Swtw 


Everybody's  Birthright 


By   CLARA    E.    LAUGHLIN 
The  Work-A-Day  Girl 

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Everybody's  Birthright 

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A  man  was  there 

close  by  Jean's  Statue, 

as  he  had  promised 


Everybody 's  Birthright 


A  Vision  of  Jeanne  a"  Arc 


By 

CLARA  E.  LAUGHLIN 

Author  of  "Everybody's  Lonesome"  etc.,  etc. 


New   York      Chicago      Toronto 
Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London         and        Edinburgh 


Copyright,   1914,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      100   Princes    Street 


To  One 
Who  Has  Been  at  Chinon 
And  Has  Gone  to  Rheims 


CONTENTS 
I.  "  Sorrow  Is  a  Kind  of  Highway  "      1 1 

20 


II.         In    the     Footsteps    of    Jeanne 
d'  Arc    .... 


III.  "  We  All  Owe  the  Same  Debt — 

Courage"       ....  29 

IV.  "  All  Times  Are  Brave  Times  "  .  42 

V.  "  Our  Birthright  Is  Bravery  "    .  53 

VI.  "  A  Fortune  Waiting  For  You  "  65 

VII.  "  Some  of  the  Uncrowned  "         .  76 
VHI.    The  First  "  Gallant  Company  "  ,  91 

IX.  Those  Who  Linger  at  Chinon      .  98 

X.  "  Places  Where  Things  Happened  "  110 

XI.  Getting  to  Where  the  Dauphin 

Was 122 

XII.  "  Where  Kings  Were  Crowned  "  131 


Illustrations 

Facing  Page 
A  man  was  there  close  by  Jean's  statue,  as  he 

had  promised Title 

*'l  think  I  know  what  this  means  to  you,  dear. "  1 6 

"She  meant  that  I  had  gone  where   nothing 

kept  me  safe."         .         .         .  i  134 


"  SOEEOW  IS  A  KIND  OF  HIGHWAY  " 

THE  door-bell  rang,  and  Jean  buried 
her  head  deeper  in  the  pillows  of  the 
big  davenport  in  the  library.  Why, 
oh,  why  did  people  insist  on  making  these 
dreadful  calls,  of  condolence  ?  Endlessly,  it 
seemed  to  her,  they  came  and  went — whisper- 
ing to  Hilda  at  the  door ;  waiting,  like 
spectres,  in  the  drawing-room ;  tiptoeing  up 
to  her  mother's  chamber,  and  there  going 
over  with  her,  as  she  lay  abed,  all  the  details 
of  Margaret's  death.  Jean  hated  them  all. 
Yes,  hated  them.  What  did  they  know  of 
the  agony  of  Margaret's  loss?  They  could 
go  away — to  their  homes,  to  their  amusements 
— and  laugh  and  forget.  Why  did  they 
come  here  and  walk  softly  and  talk  sadly,  as 
if  they  understood  ?  Why  did  her  mother 
see  them  and  tell  them  each  in  turn  about 
Margaret — just  as  if  they  cared  ?  After  each 
departure  her  mother  was  more  inconsolable 
than  before.  Jean  was  impatient  with  her 
mother's  weakness.  Of  course  she  grieved 
ii 


12    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

for  Margaret !  But  if  she  grieved  as  Jean 
did,  could  she  talk  about  it  to  these  people  ? 
Jean  couldn't  talk  about  her  loss — hardly 
even  to  Dad.  She  couldn't  feel  that  any  one 
in  all  the  world  could  understand.  For 
Margaret  was  her  twin.  They  two  had  been 
separated  scarcely  an  hour  in  their  lives — 
nearly  seventeen  years.  From  morning  till 
night,  and  from  night  until  another  morning 
broke,  everything  that  Jean  did,  or  tried  to 
do,  deepened  her  sense  of  loss.  Margaret, 
alive,  was  "  half  of  everything  "  ;  but  by  the 
tragic  arithmetic  of  death,  Margaret,  going 
away,  did  not  leave  half  of  anything.  There 
are  many  precious  things  in  life  of  which  half 
is  worth  no  more  than  half  of  a  baby — as 
Solomon  knew  when  he  proposed  that  con- 
solation. 

Jean's  slender  figure,  prostrate  on  the  big 
brown  davenport,  shook  with  sobs.  Every- 
body told  her  she  must  try  to  control  herself, 
must  try  to  keep  from  sobbing  and  crying,  or 
she  would  break  her  health.  They  couldn't 
seem  to  realize  that  the  one  thing  Jean  did 
not  dread  was  that  her  health  would  break. 
Nobody  knew  how  many  times  her  lithe, 
black-clad  body  had  thrown  itself,  in  a  pas- 
sion of  agony,  on  Margaret's  grave ;  nor  how 
Jean  had  cried,  with  her  face  pressed  against 


"SORROW  IS  A  HIGHWAY"     13 

the  sod,  "  I  want  to  come,  too,  Margaret ! 
I  want  to  come,  too ! " 

The  library  was  dark,  and  very  still.  The 
short  autumn  day  had  been  a  gray  one ;  and 
the  shadows,  which  had  not  been  driven  out 
of  the  corners  of  the  big  room  all  day,  came 
trooping  forth  unchallenged,  and  swathed  it 
in  deep  duskiness  by  four  o'clock. 

Some  one  came  down  the  stairs,  and  back 
to  the  library  door  and  looked  in ;  then  went 
away.  Jean  heard  the  footsteps,  but  did  not 
raise  her  head. 

Then  Hilda  came  through  the  dining-room 
and  into  the  hall,  to  light  the  electric  lamps. 

"  Did  Miss  Jean  go  out  ?  "  a  woman's  voice 
asked. 

"  No,  ma'am  ;  I  think  she's  in  the  lib'ry," 
Hilda  answered. 

In  a  minute,  Jean  knew,  Hilda  would  switch 
on  the  library  lights,  to  look  for  her.  So  she 
called  out : 

"I'm  here.     What  is  it?" 

"  A  lady — Miss  Binford — to  see  you,  Miss 
Jean." 

Jean  clenched  her  hands  and  stiffened  her 
slight  body  resentfully.  Why  couldn't  they 
leave  her  alone — these  people  who  thought 
they  must  "  condole  "  ? 

But  Jean  had  been  bred  to  courtesy  of  man- 


14    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

ner.  She  rose  to  her  feet  instantly  and  went 
towards  the  door. 

"  How  do  you  do  ? "  she  said,  politely. 
"  Just  a  second — till  I  reach  the  light  switch 
— so  you  can  see — it's  very  dark " 

"  Don't  turn  on  the  lights,  please — unless 
you  want  to,"  Miss  Binford  pleaded.  "  I  can 
see." 

"It  was  very  good  of  you  to  come,"  Jean 
started  to  say,  after  her  best  formula  for  such 
occasions. 

But  she  had  scarcely  got  it  out,  in  her 
automatically  polite  way,  when  she  found  her- 
self enfolded  in  Miss  Binford's  arms. 

"  Dear  little  Jean  ! "  Mary  Binford  said — 
and  there  was  a  catch  in  her  voice,  a  sob, 
that  made  it  very  different  from  the  voices  of 
other  persons  who  had  tried  to  be  kind. 

Jean  clung  to  her ;  she  could  not  speak. 
She  could  feel  sorrow  in  the  heart  of  the 
woman  who  held  her  against  her  breast. 
This  was,  Jean  knew  by  a  flash  of  intuition, 
not  a  comfortably  happy  woman  who  had 
looked  in  to  say,  "  You  must  try  to  bear  up 
— for  your  parents'  sake,"  and  then  would  go 
on  her  way  to  some  club  or  tea,  to  tell  other 
comfortably  happy  women  that  she  had  been 
to  see  the  Fahrlows  and  that  "  calls  of  con- 
dolence are  so  trying." 


"SORROW  IS  A  HIGHWAY"     15 

"I  don't  know  that  you  remember  me, 
Jean,"  Mary  Binford  began,  when  she  could 
command  herself — the  sudden  clinging  of 
Jean's  thin  arms  about  her  neck  had  shaken 
her  soul's  depths.  "  I  went  to  school  with 
your  mother,"  she  went  on,  checking  Jean's 
effort  to  reply.  "  I  haven't — we  haven't  seen 
a  great  deal  of  each  other,  latterly — we  haven't 
— our  paths  haven't  seemed  to  cross.  But 
sorrow  is  a  kind  of  highway — isn't  it  ?  On  it 
we  all  meet.  I  wanted  to  come  to  your 
mother,  to  the  girl  I  used  to  know,  when  I 
heard  of  her  sorrow.  But  most  of  all,  Jean, 
dear,  I  wanted  to  come  to  you.  I  haven't 
seen  you  in  a  long  time — but  I  couldn't  get 
the  thought  of  you  out  of  my  mind.  I  think 
I  know  what  this  means  to  you,  dear.  I 
know  what  it  means  to  have  some  one  go 
away  and  leave  life — no,  not  blank  !  we  could 
bear  that — but  just  packed  with  memories 
that  taunt  us,  every  minute  of  the  day,  and 
worst  of  all,  in  the  long,  crawling  minutes  of 
the  night." 

They  sat  down  on  the  davenport,  and  for  a 
few  moments  they  just  clung,  one  to  the 
other — girl  to  woman,  and  woman  to  girl. 

It  was  Jean  who  spoke  first. 

"  Was  it — your  sister  ?  " 

"  No,  darling.     I  never  had  a  sister.     I  al- 


16    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

ways  wanted  one.  When  I  was  a  little  girl 
I  wanted  a  sister  more  than  anything  else  in 
the  world." 

"  And  did  you — get  over  wanting  one  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  just  '  get  over '  it,  dear  ;  I  want 
one  yet.  Every  time  I  see  two  sisters  happy 
in  each  other  I  seem  to  feel  all  I've  missed. 
But  when  I  grew  up,  and  had  learned  how  to 
get  along  in  my  sisterless  way,  I — something 
else  came  into  my  life,  and  rilled  it  so  full  of 
glory  and  the  most  perfect  comradeship  I 
could  think  of  only  one  happiness  that  could 
make  life  any  more  wonderful ;  and  that  was 
a  little  girl,  whose  name  was  to  be  Jean.  Do 
you  understand,  dear?" 

Jean  tightened,  for  a  moment,  the  clinging 
of  her  arms  about  Miss  Mary.  And  Miss 
Mary  knew  that  Jean  understood. 

"  I'll  tell  you  why  her  name  was  to  have 
been  Jean — that  little  girl  who  never  came — 
and  then  perhaps  you'll  know  why  I  wanted 
to  come  to  you  so  much. 

"  When  I  was  nineteen,  I  went  abroad  to 
study  painting.  I  had  wanted  to  go  for 
more  than  a  year.  But  my  parents  wouldn't 
listen  to  any  suggestion  that  I  go  alone ;  and 
they  couldn't  go  with  me.  Then,  it  all 
seemed  arranged  for  me  by  Providence :  two 
of  our  dearest   friends  were  going  over  to 


"I think  I  know 

what  this  means 

to  you,  dear  " 


"SORROW  IS  A  HIGHWAY'1     17 

spend  a  year  or  more.  They  were  a  childless 
couple,  the  most  charming  people  imaginable. 
Professor  Durland  was  a  French-Swiss,  from 
that  neutral  ground  near  Geneva  which  is 
neither  Switzerland  nor  France.  His  wife 
was  from  the  old  duchy  of  Lorraine,  in  east- 
ern France.  They  had  been  teaching  over 
here  for  twelve  years,  and  they  were  very 
homesick.  They  decided  to  go  back  for  a 
year — maybe  for  two — and  they  offered  to 
take  me  with  them.  It  was  a  wonderful  of- 
fer, for  they  were  the  kind  of  persons  who 
make  young  folks  very,  very  happy  and  who 
help  them  to  find  all  the  loveliest  things  in  life. 
My  parents  knew  them  well,  and  were  de- 
lighted to  let  me  have  this  opportunity. 

"  We  had  a  teeny-weeny  apartment  in 
Paris — not  just  in  the  Latin  Quarter,  but  not 
far  from  it,  on  the  left  bank,  as  they  call  that 
side  of  the  Seine  where  the  schools  and  col- 
leges are.  Sometimes  we  ate  in  the  restau- 
rants for  which  the  quarter  is  almost  as 
famous  as  for  its  schools.  And  sometimes 
we  went  out  to  the  little  shops  where  one  can 
buy  all  kinds  of  ready-cooked  things  (includ- 
ing the  best,  smoking-hot  French  fried  pota- 
toes, of  which  a  fresh  lot  seems  always  to  be 
just  coming  from  the  kettle  of  fat)  or  order 
things  cooked  especially  ;  and  then  we'd  set 


18     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

the  table  in  our  little  living-room  and  have  a 
jolly  meal  at  home.  It  was  all  like  a  continu- 
ous picnic." 

Mary  Binford  could  not  see  Jean's  face,  but 
something  less  fallible  than  sight  told  her  that 
Jean  was  interested ;  that  probably  for  the 
first  time  since  Margaret  went  away,  Jean 
was  feeling  something  which  did  not  remind 
her  of  her  loss. 

"  In  our  leisure  times,"  she  continued,  "  we 
went  on  the  most  enchanting  excursions, 
around  Paris  and  out  of  Paris.  The  Dur- 
lands  were  the  most  wonderful  guides  and 
companions  any  girl  could  possibly  wish  for. 
And  they  were  the  dearest  lovers  !  People 
who  didn't  know  they  had  been  married  for 
twenty  years  used  to  think  they  were 
on  their  honeymoon.  They  were!  Their 
honeymoon  never  waned. 

"  Those  were  the  days  when  everybody 
rode  bicycles.  We  each  had  our  own  wheel, 
and  on  them  we  went  all  over  Paris,  and  to 
all  the  places  near  by.  We  saw  pictures  and 
studied  architecture,  and  stood  'all  thrilly 
and  chilly '  where  historic  things  had  hap- 
pened. It  was  just  like  living  in  a  most 
marvellous  story-book,  with  splendid  illustra- 
tions opposite  every  page. 

"  And  then  to  make  it  more  than  ever  like 


"SORROW  IS  A  HIGHWAY"     19 

a  story-book,  there  came  into  it  a — Prince. 
He  was  studying  architecture,  at  the  Beaux 
Arts.     I  was  studying  painting,  under  Boutet 

de    Monvel.     He   was You   want  to 

know  how  he  looked,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  whispered  Jean. 

"  He  was  quite  tall  and — well,  sturdy  with- 
out being  at  all  stocky  or  stout.  And  he 
had  fair  hair,  thick  and  fine,  a  great  thatch 
of  it ;  and  gray-blue  eyes ;  and  the  most 
beautiful  mouth  I  have  ever  seen  on  a  man. 
I  used  to  study  all  the  great  statues  that 
showed  manly  beauty,  to  see  if  one  of  them 
had  a  mouth  at  once  so  strong  and  so  sweet 
as  his.  And  it  always  seemed  to  me  that 
none  of  them  had. 

"  He  was  with  us  a  great  deal — a  very 
great  deal.  The  Durlands  liked  him,  and  he 
liked  them,  and  we  were  all  very  happy  to- 
gether. We  seemed  to  have  a  thousand 
tastes  in  common.  And  then  we  discovered 
— he  and  I — that  we  had  ideals  in  common, 
too — ideals  of  what  we  hoped  to  be  and  of 
what  we  hoped  to  do.  And  my  life  was  so 
full   of   happiness   that   I — well,  when  it  all 

went  away  I !     But  I  want  to  tell  you 

about  Jean." 


II 

IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  JEANNE  D'AEC 

"  TTN  Paris,  school  vacation  begins  on  the 
I  first  of  August.  And  for  a  long  while 
-«-  before  August  came,  we  had  been 
planning  our  vacation  jaunt.  I  don't  know 
whether  you  happen  to  know  about  it  or 
not,  but  Boutet  de  Monvel,  in  whose  studio  I 
studied,  was  the  painter  who  did  such  beauti- 
ful Jeanne  d'Arc  pictures — for  mural  decora- 
tions. I  think  you  may  have  seen  some  of 
them  when  they  were  exhibited  in  this  coun- 
try— or  perhaps  you  have  the  book  in  which 
they  are  reproduced  in  colour,  with  his  own 
charming  text  accompanying  them. 

"  Well,  I  studied  them  enthusiastically.  I 
had  always  loved  the  story  of  Jeanne.  And 
our  plan  for  that  August  jaunt  on  our  bicy- 
cles was  to  go  over  the  Jeanne  d'Arc  coun- 
try— all  the  places  associated  with  her — from 
Domremy  to  Rouen.  This  was  delightful 
for  the  Durlands,  because  it  meant  revisiting 
the  neighbourhoods  they  had  known  and 
loved  when  they  were  young.  And  it  was 
ideal  for  Laddie — that  was  what  I  always 
20 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  JEANNE  D ARC   21 

called  him,  dear — because  on  our  way  he 
would  see  many  of  the  cathedrals  and  cha- 
teaux he  was  eager  to  study. 

"  As  I  look  back  at  it  all,  now,  it  doesn't 
seem  to  me  that  there  can  ever  really  have 
been  so  much  happiness  in  the  world  as  when 
we  were  swelling  the  sum  total  in  those  days. 
The  way  we  studied  road-maps  and  guide- 
books !  The  way  we  freshened  up  our  his- 
tory !  And  the  way  we  planned  our  picnics 
by  the  roadside  at  noonday — our  halts  for 
the  nights  in  little  French  inns." 

An  instinct  tenderly  wise  had  made  Mary 
Binford  preface  the  recital  of  this  happiness 
by  the  simple  statement  that  it  did  not  last. 
A  tale  of  radiant  days  would  have  been  no 
better  than  a  taunt  to  Jean.  But  a  tale  of 
golden  days,  from  which  all  the  gold  van- 
ished, gave  her  an  opportunity  to  compare  this 
sorrow  with  her  own.  And  so  she  listened. 
And  at  times  she  almost  forgot  to  compare. 

"We  left  Paris,  shortly  after  the  early 
dawn,  on  the  morning  of  the  first  of  August," 
Mary  continued,  "  and  went  by  way  of  Fon- 
tainebleau  and  Sens  and  Troyes  to  Dom- 
remy,  Jeanne's  birthplace.  And  there  we 
stood  in  the  room  where  she  was  born,  and 
in  the  other  humble  room  that  was  hers  ; 
and  went  into  the  tiny  village  church  where 


22    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

she  worshipped  God;  and  into  the  fields 
where,  when  she  was  tending  her  father's 
flock,  St.  Margaret  and  St.  Catherine,  and 
St.  Michael  the  archangel  of  battles,  came  to 
her  in  visions  and  spoke  to  her  with  Voices 
which  she  alone  heard,  and  told  her  she  must 
save  France  from  the  English  who  then  held 
so  much  of  it  that  the  Dauphin  durst  not  go 
to  Rheims  to  have  himself  invested  with  his 
birthright,  the  crown.  The  Voices,  you  re- 
member, told  Jeanne,  who  was  just  your  age, 
dear,  that  she  must  drive  the  English  army 
away  from  Orleans,  which  they  were  besieg- 
ing, and  take  the  Dauphin  to  Rheims  to  be 
crowned  King  of  France.  And  Jeanne,  al- 
though she  had  no  horse  to  ride,  nor  even 
any  clothes  for  the  journey,  went  unhesi- 
tatingly, and  did  as  the  Voices  told  her. 

"  When  we  were  leaving  Domremy,  to  go 
to  Vaucouleurs  whither  Jeanne  went  to  ask 
the  Sire  de  Beaudricourt  for  an  armed  escort 
to  take  her  to  the  Dauphin  at  Chinon,  a 
company  of  French  soldiers  came  marching 
by  from  the  great  military  headquarters  at 
Toul.  And  when  they  reached  that  lowly 
stone  hut  whence  Jeanne  had  set  forth  to 
save  France,  the  soldiers  formed  ranks  and 
presented  arms — to  the  memory  of  The  Maid, 
as  all  France  calls  her. 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  JEANNE  DARC   23 

"  We  followed  her  footsteps  to  Vaucouleurs, 
and  thence  to  Chinon  where  she  found  the 
Dauphin  Charles.  That  journey  took  The 
Maid  twelve  days.  We  covered  the  distance, 
and  saw  much  by  the  way,  in  four  days. 

"We  got  there  towards  nightfall  and  stayed 
until  morning  at  the  little  inn  in  the  town 
square  where  the  fountain  plays  and  the  girls 
and  women  fill  their  water- jugs  and  the  old 
gossips  sit  in  the  shade  of  the  market  booths. 
And  when  morning  came,  we  climbed  the 
cobbled  steps,  between  rows  of  dwellings — 
some  of  them  dug  out  of  the  great  rocks — to 
the  splendid  ruins  of  the  castle  on  the  hill- 
top. We  stood  in  the  roofless  hall  where 
Jeanne  had  singled  out  the  Dauphin  from 
amongst  his  courtiers  in  whose  midst  he  tried 
to  hide.  We  sat  on  the  broad,  stone  window 
seats,  in  the  deep  embrasures,  and  looked  far 
away  over  the  beautiful  valley  of  the  Vienne. 
We  peered  down  into  the  dungeons,  and 
scrambled  over  crumbling  walls.  And  by 
and  by  we  came  to  the  tower  of  Coudray 
where  Jeanne  was  lodged. 

"  The  stairs  that  wind  and  wind  within  the 
tower  are  narrow  and  steep.  When  we  came 
to  the  foot  of  them  and  looked  up  into  the 
dusk  above,  the  Durlands  declared  they 
would  not  make  the  climb ;  that  we  who  were 


24    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

younger  might  go  up  and  tell  them  how  the 
chamber  of  Jeanne  looks. 

"  They  used  to  do  things  like  that,  at 
times.  For  they  were  lovers,  and  they  knew 
that  Laddie  and  I  had  things  to  say  that — 
that  may  be  said  only  when  two  who  love 
can  feel  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  but 
themselves  and  the  glory  'round  about  them 
and  within. 

"  We  were  gone  a  long  time,  I  think.  I 
don't  know  1  All  I  know  is  that  up  there  in 
the  little  tower-room  where  Jeanne  had  lodged 
until  she  rode  forth  at  the  head  of  her  army, 
to  Orleans  and  victory,  we  talked  of  her,  but 
we  thought  of  ourselves.  No  word  of  our 
love  had  been  spoken,  but  I  looked  up  and 
saw  in  my  Laddie's  face  something — oh, 
Jean  !  I  think  the  Home-lights,  when  we  are 
drawing  near  to  Heaven,  cannot  be  so  won- 
derful as  the  light  that  shines  in  the  eyes  of 
the  man  God  made  for  your  mate.  He 
didn't  speak — he  just  held  out  his  arms  to 
me,  and  I  laid  my  face  against  his  breast  and 
sobbed  in  happiness.  And  it  seemed  as  if 
The  Maid  and  her  three  saints,  and  all  the 
blessed  ones,  came  and  shone  'round  us  with 
their  heavenly  light.  Our  love  was  so  pure. 
That  first  kiss  was  so  holy. 

"  That  made  dear  Jeanne  our  patron  saint. 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  JEANNE  D  ARC   25 

And  as  we  followed  her  to  Orleans,  and  to 
Rheims,  and  all  the  way  through  to  Com- 
piegne  and  to  Rouen  and  the  spot  where 
she  was  burned  by  her  English  captors,  she 
grew  to  be  more  and  more  a  part  of  our 
lives. 

"  And  as  we  talked  of  the  future  and  of  all 
the  glory  it  was  to  hold,  we  used  to  say  that 
if  the  gates  of  Heaven  opened  and  sent  down 
a  little  giri  to  us,  some  day,  her  name  should 
be  Jean." 

The  narrator's  voice  broke.  There  was 
silence  for  a  minute — perhaps  for  longer. 
Jean  felt  a  tear  on  her  hair,  then  another. 
She  pressed  herself  closer  against  Miss  Mary, 
in  silent  sympathy. 

11  My  Jean  never  came  true,"  Miss  Mary 
went  on,  presently.  "  But  I  have  never 
ceased  to  yearn  for  her.  And  that  is  why, 
when  I  knew  of  your  sorrow,  I  wanted  so 
much  to  come  to  you.  When  your  life  was 
full  of  pleasantness,  of  happiness  with  Mar- 
garet, I  couldn't  have  come  to  you  and  asked 
you  to  wind  your  arms  about  my  neck  as  my 
Jean  might  have  done  ;  could  I  ?  You  might 
have  been  sweet  and  kind  and  understand- 
ing ;  you  might  have  done  as  I  asked.  But 
it  wouldn't  have  been  like  this ;  would  it? 
Sorrow  makes  many  things  possible." 


26    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

"  Did  your  Laddie  go  away — to  Heaven  ?  " 
Jean  whispered. 

"  He  went  further  than  that,  dear,"  Mary 
Binford  answered,  chokingly.  "  He  went 
where  I  can  never  hope  to  find  him.  Heaven 
isn't  far ;  and  it  keeps  our  loved  ones  safe 
for  us." 

"  Did  he  go  away  so  far  you  couldn't  love 
him  any  more?"  Jean  asked,  wonderingly. 

"  No,  darling  1  There  isn't  any  distance 
in  the  universe  so  great  as  that.  He  only 
went  so  far  that  I  couldn't  reach  him  with 
my  love." 

"  I  don't  think  I  understand,"  Jean  mur- 
mured. 

"  Ipray  God  you  never  may  understand  ! " 
Miss  Mary  said.  "  But  I  wanted  to  tell  you 
about  my  Jean  because — well,  you  see,  there 
are  the  splendid  things  that  I  planned  to  do 
when  my  world  was  all  alight  with  glory. 
Hardly  any  one  lives  up  to  those  visions  of 
life's  morning.  But  most  people  comfort 
themselves  by  saying  :  '  My  boy  or  my  girl 
will  do  all  that  I  hoped  to  do  and  failed  of — 
yes,  and  more  ! '  I  can't  say,  '  My  Jean  will 
do  those  things,'  because  I  haven't  any  Jean. 
And  I  thought  it  might  be  that " 

"That  /could  do  them  ?  "  Jean  whispered. 

"  Well,  yes,  dear !     I    even    thought    we 


FOOTSTEPS  OF  JEANNE  D  ARC   27 

might  do  some  of  them  together.  I  didn't 
know  much  about  you — about  what  kinds  of 
things  you'd  care  for.  But  somehow  I  seem 
to  feel  that  I  know  now.  I  haven't  seen  your 
face.  I've  hardly  heard  your  voice.  And 
yet  something  deep  in  my  heart  tells  me  that 
if  my  Jean  had  '  come  true,'  she  would  have 
been  very,  very  much  like  you.  There  1 
I've  made  a  poem,  haven't  I  ?  " 

Jean  reached  up  and  kissed  Miss  Mary — 
once  for  herself,  she  said,  and  once  for  the 
other  Jean. 

"  I'm  not  worth  much  for  doing  things," 
she  said.  "  I  used  to  plan  and  dream  when 
Margaret  was  here.  We  planned  wonderful 
things.  I  wish  you  had  known  us  then.  But 
it  breaks  my  heart,  now,  to  remember  them." 

"  I  know  it  must.  It  is  eighteen  years 
since  my  heart  broke.  And  I  can't  think,  yet, 
of  those  dreams  that  we  had  together  with- 
out agony  as  keen  as  if  we  had  just  been 
parted." 

"  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  could  live  eighteen 
years — without  Margaret,"  Jean  sobbed. 

And  because  Miss  Mary  said  neither,  "  Oh, 
yes,  you  will,  dear  ! "  nor,  "  You  mustn't  talk 
like  that,  dear,"  nor  even  "  I  thought  so,  too 
— but  lived  on,"  Jean  knew  that  she  was  the 
kind  of  person  who  can  help. 


28    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

What  she  did  say  was,  "  Perhaps  not,  Jean. 
Dante  called  the  time  he  must  spend  here 
after  his  Beatrice  went  away  '  the  time  of  my 
debt.'  The  time  of  your  debt  may  not  be 
long.  But  of  course  you  don't  want  to  go 
until  your  debt  is  paid." 

"My  debt?" 

"  Why,  yes,  dear.  You  know  how  Dante 
paid  his — don't  you  ?  His  great  debt  for  the 
great  love  he  had  known  ?  Perhaps  you  and 
I  may  read  about  it  together,  some  day,  and 
I  can  describe  to  you  all  the  places  I've  been 
where  Dante  lived  and  loved  and  suffered, 
and  where  he  went  on  writing  book  after 
deathless  book  in  praise  of  his  '  dear  lady.'  " 

"  I'd  like  to  hear,"  Jean  answered.  "  But 
I  could  never  pay  a  debt  like  that.  I'm  only 
a  young  girl  without  any  talents — I  mean,  for 
doing  things." 

"  The  Maid  of  France  was  only  a  girl,  who 
didn't  know  her  A.  B.  C.  Yet  think  of  the 
debt  God  laid  on  her !  And  how  she  paid  ! 
You  see,  dear  Jean,  I  have  had  to  remind 
myself  of  these  things,  and  of  many  others. 
I  have  to  keep  reminding  myself — so  I  shall 
not  fail.  And  I  thought  perhaps  it  would 
help  you — a  little — if  I  told  you  how  I — 
fought  on — when  the  light  went  out  of  my 
life " 


Ill 


"  WE  ALL  OWE  THE  SAME  DEBT— 
COUBAGE" 

ISS  MARY'S  voice  thrilled  Jean 
strangely ;  it  was  so  full  of  pain 
and  of  loneliness,  and  yet  it  was  so 
brave  and  tender  ;  it  didn't  seem  as  if  it  sought 
to  soothe,  the  way  other  voices  seemed  in 
their  efforts  to  express  sympathy ;  it  didn't 
lull — it  called — called  Jean  into  a  noble  com- 
pany, into  the  company  of  those  who  bear 
bravely. 

"  I  want  to — fight  on,"  Jean  sobbed.  "  I 
want  to  pay — my  debt." 

Miss  Mary  bent  her  head  and  kissed  Jean 
on  her  brow. 

"  We  all  owe  the  same  debt,  dear.  And 
we  pay  it  as  we  can." 

"The  same  debt?" 

"  Yes — courage  1  We  all  owe  that  to  the 
rest  in  the  ranks — to  our  fellows,  fighting  be- 
side us.  Life  is  a  great  big  battle-field,  Jean ! 
Every  one  of  us  with  our  daily  battles  to 
fight.  Every  one  of  us  with  our  wounds  and 
our  weariness  and  our  hunger  and  thirst,  and 
29 


30    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

our  fainting  hope.  None  of  us  could  bear  it 
alone.  Some  of  us  can't  bear  it  because  we 
have  thought  about  ourselves  so  much  that 
we've  sort  of  wandered  away  out  of  sight  and 
hearing  of  the  others,  and  got  to  thinking 
that  we  alone  are  wounded  and  weary.  We 
must  keep  close  to  the  others,  darling  1  It 
helps  us  when  we  see  how  brave  they  are. 
They  need  our  help — need  to  see  how  brave 
we  are.     That's  life  ! " 

"  It  sounds  so — hard,"  Jean  murmured. 

"It  is  hard!  But  it's  splendid,  too.  It 
isn't  hardship  that  makes  life  unbearable — 
it's  the  kind  of  spirit  we  put  into  it.  The 
hard  things  are  the  things  that  make  us  thrill, 
that  show  us  what  we  have  in  us.  You  play 
golf,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  I — I  used  to,"  Jean  answered. 

"  Well,  what  would  you  give  to  play  golf 
on  a  course  like  a  croquet-ground  ?  Noth- 
ing !  would  you  ?  You  could  get  just  as 
much  exercise,  just  as  much  wholesome  fresh 
air,  if  you  stayed  at  it  long  enough.  But  you 
wouldn't  stay !  It  wouldn't  be  '  any  fun.' 
There  must  be  bushes  where  the  balls  can 
hide,  and  brooks  (if  possible)  or  other  '  natural 
hazards.'  If  not  those,  then  bunkers.  The 
more  difficulties,  the  more  fun.  Isn't  that 
right?" 


"COURAGE"  31 

"  Yes/'  Jean  admitted. 

"And  when  you  used  to  play  croquet, 
didn't  you  put  a  double  arch  in  the  centre,  so 
it  would  be  harder  to  get  through  ?  Didn't 
you  lay  your  first  arches  two  mallet-lengths 
apart — because  one  length  was  '  too  easy '  ?  " 

"  Yes — we  did." 

"  Of  course  you  did !  Everybody  loves  to 
set  himself  tasks  and  make  himself  do  them 
■■ — even  in  his  play.  But  not  everybody  has 
learned  what  thrills  are  possible  just  in  stand- 
ing up  to  the  tasks  that  are  set  for  us — by  the 
Teacher — who  knows  so  well  what  we  need 
— for  our  strengthening.  The  world  is  full 
of  people  doing  bravely  what  was  given  them 
to  do  ;  bearing  with  courage  what  was  given 
them  to  bear.  It's  wonderful !  I  often  think 
God  must  be  very  proud  of  His  children. 
Some  of  them  fall  very  short,  it's  true.  But 
others  are  so  splendid  1 " 

Again  there  was  that  note  in  Miss  Mary's 
voice  that  thrilled  ;  that  called  to  Jean  as  the 
bugle  calls  to  the  soldier.  The  heart  of 
youth  is  full  of  heroism,  yearning  to  express 
itself  in  action.  Mary  Binford  felt  this  ;  felt 
the  general  neglect  of  that  desire.  She  knew 
that  to  ask  Jean  just  to  endure  would  be  to 
deny  that  plan  of  Nature  which  made  daring 
the  courage  of  youth,  and   endurance  the 


32     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

courage  of  maturity.  Jean  must  have  some- 
thing to  do  /  The  vision  that  came  to  her, 
the  voices  that  called  to  her,  must  lay  an 
active,  not  a  passive,  task  upon  her.  She 
must  pay  her  debt,  her  debt  of  courage,  in 
things  done — not  just  in  things  endured. 
But  how  ? 

"  Did  you — tell  these  things  to  Mother  ?  " 
Jean  asked.  There  was  no  irrelevance  in  the 
question.     Mary  Binford  understood. 

"  No,  dear,  I  didn't." 

She  was  at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  speak  to 
Jean  about  her  mother.  Yet  the  question 
showed  that,  in  some  measure  at  least,  Jean 
was  aware  of  her  mother's  weakness. 

Ida  Fahrlow  had  never  set  herself  any  tasks. 
She  had  never  accepted  any  that  she  could 
avoid.  She  had  hardly  even  sought  the  easy, 
pleasant  places  in  life,  so  much  as  she  had 
drifted,  effortlessly,  into  them.  Once,  and 
once  only,  had  she  braved  suffering — to  give 
life.  Other  than  that,  she  had  shirked  every- 
thing that  "  looked  hard."  And  until  now 
she  had  seemed  to  escape  the  discipline  that 
usually  cannot  be  refused. 
^  Mary  Binford  had  found  her,  to-day,  as  she 
knew  she  should  find  her :  in  bed ;  tear- 
stained,  but  not  dishevelled — looking  pretty 
even  as  she  wept.     Ida  explained,  at  length, 


"COURAGE"  33 

how  much  heavier  the  blow  had  fallen  on  her 
than  on  any  one. 

"  Jim  has  his  business  to  go  to.  Men  get 
busy,  and  forget.  And  Jean  has  her  school, 
her  lessons.  Then,  too,  she  is  young — and 
the  young  get  over  things  so  quickly.  With 
me  it's  different.  No  one  suffers  as  a  mother 
does." 

Mary  had  not  spoken  to  Ida  about  her 
"  debt "  !  Somehow,  no  one  ever  seemed  to 
appeal  to  Ida,  to  call  on  her  to  be  brave,  un- 
selfish. As  well  call  on  a  jellyfish  to  stand 
erect.  Yet  no  !  God  had  made  Ida  verte- 
brate. But  she  had  forgotten — and  had 
caused  others  to  forget — that  she  had  a 
spine. 

Jim  had  forgotten — or  so  it  seemed  to 
Mary.  Perhaps  he  had  never  expected  Ida 
to  "  stand  erect,  fare  forward."  Perhaps  he 
had  hoped — and  then  despaired.  But  he 
never  wavered  in  his  tenderness,  his  stead- 
fastness. Jim  was,  Mary  felt  sure,  one  of 
those  strong,  simple  souls  whose  own  needs 
keep  them  loyal,  irrespective  of  encourage- 
ment or  the  lack  of  it ;  who  are  sustained  by 
filling  their  own  ideals,  rather  than  by  find- 
ing others  to  fulfill  them. 

"  If  I  could  know,"  she  thought  as  she 
listened  to  Ida,  "  that  the  love  of  my  youth 


34     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

was  coming  home  to  me — in  an  hour — his 
heart  overflowing  with  tenderness  for  me,  his 
arms  outstretched  to  enfold  me !  If  I  could 
know  that  our  Jean — his  child  and  mine — was 
where  I  had  only  to  call  her  and  she  would 
come  ! " 

How  much  Jean  realized  her  mother's  weak 
selfishness,  Mary  could  not  know — and  was 
loath  to  discover.  And  Jean  had  strong  in- 
stincts of  loyalty ;  but  also,  she  was  sore  per- 
plexed. She  had  tried,  once  or  twice,  to  talk 
to  Dad  about  Mother.  But  Dad  only  hugged 
Jean  very  hard,  and  said  :  "  Poor  little  Mother  ! 
We  must  be  very  good  to  her — mustn't  we?  " 

Jean  felt  that  she  must  ask  Miss  Mary 
some  things,  yet  she  shrank  from  voicing 
any  complaint. 

"  Mother  doesn't — seem  to — be  able  to  get 
any — to  find  any  way  to  bear  it,"  she  said. 
"  I  hoped  you  had  helped  her — too." 

"  Too  ! "  The  wee  word  filled  Mary's  heart 
with  a  great  flood  of  gladness.  To  have  been 
able  to  slip  in  here,  in  the  dark,  and  comfort 
a  stricken,  sobbing  child  !  Ah  !  that  was  sud- 
den opulence  to  a  woman  whose  maternity 
had  been  so  long  denied. 

"  Jean,  dear,"  she  answered,  feeling  her  way 
prayerfully,  "  do  you  remember  how,  in  the 
old   fairy   tales,  there  were   many  that  told 


"COURAGE"  35 

about  a  wicked  uncle  or  somebody  else  who 
plotted  and  did  desperate  things  to  get  the 
throne  or  the  fortune  of  the  young  prince  or 
princess  ?  Sometimes  the  villain  hired  rob- 
bers to  carry  the  little  prince  off  and  sell  him 
to  a  poor  wood-chopper  in  the  forest,  to  be- 
come his  slave ;  sometimes  the  princess  was 
spirited  away  and  made  to  tend  geese  ;  and 
so  on.  Not  only  the  fairy  tales,  but  all  the 
old  folk  tales  and  legends  and  hero  stories, 
are  full  of  this  theme,  of  stealing  the  birth- 
right of  the  young.  Well,  the  reason  there 
were  many  such  stories  written,  and  the 
reason  they  have  survived — that  the  world 
treasures  them  and  won't  let  them  die — is  be- 
cause they  were  and  are  so  true.  Always 
there  are  many  people — and  they  don't  even 
know  they're  wicked,  half  the  time  1 — who 
steal  away  the  birthrights  of  the  young.  I 
think  that,  when  your  mother  was  a  little  girl, 
somebody  stole  her  birthright.  I  think  she 
doesn't  know,  yet,  the  wrong  that  was  done 
to  her.  There  are  beautiful  things  that  she 
was  born  to  be  ;  brave  things  that  she  was 
born  to  do  ;  and  she  doesn't  know  it !  Do 
you — understand  ?  " 

"I  think  I  do,"  Jean  answered,  her  mind 
evidently  intent  upon  following  out  the  par- 
able, but  a  little  bewildered  at  the  thought  of 


36    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

her  mother  as  one  whom  anybody  had  ever 
ill-used. 

"  Everybody's  debt  is  courage,"  Mary  went 
on,  "and  everybody's  birthright  is — well, 
bravery — so  we  may  pay  our  way  in  the 
world.  Some  of  us  need  a  great  deal — for 
our  debt.  Some  of  us  don't  seem  to  need  so 
much.  But  everybody  needs  some.  And 
when  we're  young — the  time  that  most  peo- 
ple have  their  birthrights  stolen — no  one  can 
foresee  how  much  bravery  we  shall  need  to 
get  us  honourably  through  the  world ;  so  no 
one  ought  to  cheat  us  out  of  the  least  little 
bit.  Yet  they  do  !  Not  only  wicked  uncles, 
but  parents  who  think  they're  kind  and  good, 
cheat  young  souls  of  their  birthright — let 
them  grow  up  selfish  and  mean-spirited  and 
cowardly,  instead  of  strong  and  brave  and 
true. 

"I  wonder  if  you've  ever  seen  a  picture  of 
the  little  King  of  Rome  playing  with  toy  sol- 
diers, and  his  father — the  great  Napoleon — 
looking  on  ?  At  that  time  it  seemed  as  if  the 
boy  would  have  to  command  great  armies 
some  day  ;  and  before  he  had  ceased  to  be  a 
baby,  he  was  being  taught  to  be  a  general. 
And  the  little  Prince  Imperial,  who  was  to 
have  been  the  fourth  Napoleon,  went  to  war 
with   his   father  when   he  was   only  a  tiny 


"COURAGE"  37 

laddie.  As  it  happened,  neither  boy  lived 
long,  and  neither  of  them  reigned ;  but  both 
of  them  needed  great  courage,  even  before 
their  brief  young  lives  were  done ;  and  we 
know  they  had  it ! — the  '  eaglet '  of  Rome  dy- 
ing by  inches  in  Austria,  and  the  Prince 
Imperial  quickly  slain  in  a  Zulu  ambush. 

"  No  one  could  foresee  the  kind  of  courage 
they  would  need.  But  it  isn't  necessary  to 
foresee  that.  We  just  need  to  be  helped, 
from  the  first,  to  meet  the  hard  things  un- 
flinchingly, whatever  they  are ;  to  fight  a 
good  fight ;  to  keep  the  faith  ;  to  be  brave 
and  honourable  and  merciful  and  magnani- 
mous. When  we  don't  fight  a  brave  fight, 
it's  because  we  have  lost  our  birthright.  I 
think  it  is  the  first  business  of  each  of  us 
to  be  sure  we  have  our  own  birthright ;  and 
then  our  next  business  is  to  help  some  one 
else  recover  his,  or  hers.  Jeanne  d'Arc  led  a 
whole  nation  to  victory,  a  king  to  his  coro- 
nation. Our  debt,  we'll  pray,  is  not  so  great. 
Perhaps  we  can  each  help  one  other  soul 
to  victory !  Perhaps  we  can  each  lead  one 
timid,  uncrowned  dauphin  to  Rheims,  to  be- 
come a  king  !     Would  you  like  to  try  ?  " 

"  I'd  like  to  be  brave,"  Jean  answered ;  "as 
brave  as  God  intended  me  to  be.  And  of 
course  I'd  like  to  help  others,  too.     But  I — 


38     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

it's  hard  to  say  just  what  I  mean — I  can  make 
myself  bear  things,  but  I  don't  believe  I  could 
go  to  other  people  and  try  to  get  them  to — 
to  do  things ;  I  don't  believe  I  could  ever  be 
brave  in  that  way.  The  first  time  any  one 
made  fun  of  my  attempt,  or  resented  it,  I'd 
just  about  die  /" 

"  Not  if  you  cared  enough  about  your  un- 
dertaking !  Not  if  you  believed  with  all  your 
heart  that  it  ought  to  be  done  and  that  you 
ought  to  do  it.  Remember  Jeanne.  When 
she  first  tried  to  tell  people  about  the  Voices, 
some  laughed  at  her  and  others  feared  her 
as  a  witch.  Then,  when  she  went  to  the 
Sire  de  Beaudricourt  at  Vaucouleurs,  and 
asked  him  to  give  her  an  armed  escort  so  she 
could  go  to  Chinon,  where  the  Dauphin  was, 
he  said  :  '  The  girl  is  crazy.  Take  her  back 
to  her  parents  and  tell  them  to  give  her  a 
good  whipping.'  (That  is  the  way  lots  of 
people  to-day  evade  having  to  help  us  do 
what  is  right.)  But  Jeanne  said,  '  I  will  go 
to  Chinon  if  I  have  to  wear  my  legs  down  to 
the  knees.'  So  the  poor  folk  of  Vaucouleurs 
clothed  her  and  armed  her  and  bought  her  a 
horse ;  and  a  little  company  of  men-at-arms, 
headed  by  two  squires,  set  out  with  her  to 
Chinon.  The  country  between  Vaucouleurs 
and  Chinon  was  held  by  the  English  and 


"COURAGE"  39 

their  allies,  the  Burgundians.  And  Jeanne's 
little  company  had  to  hide  by  day  and  travel 
by  night.  Their  way  was  full  of  terrors.  But 
Jeanne  was  never  afraid. 

"  The  Dauphin  knew  she  was  coming,  but 
he  didn't  want  to  receive  her.  (Those  whom 
we  would  serve  are  often  unwilling  to  accept 
our  service.)  But  Jeanne  was  there  to  help 
him,  whether  he  would  or  no.  People  who 
most  need  help  are  usually  most  loath  to 
take  it. 

"  Charles  knew  he  should  be  King  of 
France.  He  knew  his  birthright.  But  he 
was  too  cowardly  to  demand  it.  He  had  a 
wicked  mother — one  of  the  wickedest  queens 
of  history,  Isabeau  of  Bavaria — and  his  father 
had  been  an  imbecile  for  years  before  he 
died.  Isabeau  neglected  and  ill-treated  all 
her  children,  but  there  was  one  for  whom  she 
had  a  kind  of  she-wolf  maternal  pride,  and 
that  was  the  youngest,  Katherine,  married  to 
the  young  warrior  king  of  England,  Henry  V, 
who  wrested  so  much  of  France  from  the 
French.  When  the  mad  King,  Charles  VI, 
died,  Isabeau  and  Henry  V  made  a  treaty  at 
Troyes  (not  far  from  Domremy)  and  plotted 
to  defraud  Dauphin  Charles  of  his  birthright, 
the  crown  of  France,  and  to  give  the  crown 
instead   to   the  King  of   England.     Isabeau 


40     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

thought  they  could  do  this,  because  she  knew 
that  her  son  Charles  had  never  been  taught 
to  fight.  He  was  a  coward.  He  loved  an 
easy  time  better  than  being  a  king.  All 
his  life  he  had  done  the  things  he  wanted  to 
do,  and  they  were  never  brave  things,  hard 
things,  kingly  things — they  were  weak  and 
childish  and  unworthy  things.  So  when 
Jeanne  came  to  him  and  told  him  she  was  to 
take  him  to  demand  his  birthright,  to  be 
crowned  at  Rheims  where,  even  then,  France 
had  crowned  her  kings  for  six  hundred  years, 
Charles  was  afraid  to  accept  her  help.  It 
took  a  long  time  to  convince  him.  He 
wanted  Jeanne  to  explain  how  she  was  going 
to  lead  armies  and  raise  sieges.  And  Jeanne 
couldn't  tell  how — she  only  knew  that  she  was 
going  to  do  it ! 

"  Just  as  I've  been  talking  to  you,  dear, 
I've  seen  a  vision — here  in  the  dark.  It's 
good  to  sit  in  the  dark,  sometimes — the  dark 
of  sorrow  brings  out  the  stars  of  sympathy ; 
and  in  the  dark,  the  realities — the  hard-and- 
fast  things  that  make  us  think,  sometimes,  we 
can't  do  as  our  Voices  tell  us — fade  away,  and 
we  see — Visions.  I  see  something  that  must 
be  done " 

"  Am  I — in  it  ?  "  Jean  whispered,  eagerly. 

"In  it?     Why,  you  are  it !     I'm  just  in  it 


"COURAGE"  41 

to  help  you.     And  I  think — no,  I'm  quite  sure 
that  Margaret  is  in  it,  too " 


"  My  Saint  Margaret !    Like  Jeanne's 


"Yes — but  so  much  nearer,  and  dearer. 
And  I  know  you'll  feel  her  with  you,  every 
step  of  the  way,  as  Jeanne  felt  the  presences 
that  led  and  sustained  her.  We  lose  only 
what  we  give  up,  darling.  And  you're  hold- 
ing fast  to  Margaret." 

"  Yes— oh,  yes  1 " 

"  Well,  then— I'll  tell  you  what  I  see " 


IV 
"ALL  TIMES  AEE  BE  AYE  TIMES" 

JEAN  stood  outside  her  mother's  room, 
hesitant.  Now  that  she  was  here,  close 
to  the  half-open  door,  she  was  afraid — 
afraid  of  ridicule.  All  our  lives  long,  few 
hurts  are  harder  to  bear  than  ridicule  ;  but 
when  we  are  seventeen,  and  flushed  with  our 
first  ecstasies  of  consecration  to  a  great  serv- 
ice, the  fear  of  ridicule  is  stronger  almost 
than  the  fear  of  death.  It  would  be  easier  to 
die  believing  in  ourselves  as  supremely  neces- 
sary to  the  world,  than  to  live  on  with  that  be- 
lief killed. 

.Then  Jean  remembered  the  peasant  girl 
who  did  not  know  her  A.  B.  C. ;  the  girl  with 
plain  features,  and  toil-roughened  hands,  who 
left  her  sheep-tending  and  her  field  labour, 
to  go  to  Vaucouleurs  and  tell  the  greatest 
soldier  of  her  neighbourhood  that  she  must 
take  the  Dauphin  to  be  crowned  at  Rheims. 

"I  think,"  Miss  Mary  had  said,  "that 
going  before  Beaudricourt  must  have  been 
the  hardest  of  all  the  hard  things  Jeanne  did. 
Afterwards,  no  matter  how  many  there  were 
who  did  not  believe  in  her,  there  were  always 
42 


"ALL  TIMES  ARE  BRAVE  TIMES"  43 

some  who  did  believe  in  her  devoutly.  But 
when  she  went  before  that  burly  soldier  who 
thought  he  knew  all  there  was  to  know  about 
fighting-  and  warfare  and  the  strength  of  the 
English  and  the  Burgundians,  and  the  peril 

and  the  weakness  of  France !     Yes,  I  am 

quite  sure  that  must  have  been  harder  for 
Jeanne  even  than  going  to  the  stake.  And  I 
believe  the  reason  so  many  of  us,  who  see 
Visions  of  splendid  things  we  might  do,  hear 
Voices  urging  us  to  service,  never  accomplish 
anything,  is  because  the  beginning  is  so  hard. 
We  think  of  some  bellowing  Beaudricourt 
who'll  shout  at  us  that  we're  crazy — and  we 
never  start  from  Domremy." 

Jean  thought  she  would  rather  have  faced 
"  bellowing  Beaudricourt "  than  the  pretty 
little  lady  in  the  big  four-poster  bed.  After 
all,  a  burly  fellow  who  shouted  at  you  might 
get  your  fighting  spirit  up  ;  but  a  Dresden- 
china  parent  in  a  shadow-lace  boudoir  cap 
(its  pink  chiffon  rosebuds  replaced  by  a  black 
velvet  bow),  who  wept  softly  and  persistently, 
and  said  :  "  Darling,  don't  talk  so  !      You 

frighten  me You  must  have  a  fever " 

Ah,  well !  the  Dauphin  had  been  of  that 
Dresden  sort.  And  he  thought  Jeanne  might 
have  a  familiar  spirit,  and  sent  her  to  Poitiers 
to  be  examined  by  the  doctors  of  theology. 


44    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

Jean  slipped  through  the  half-open  door 
and  stood  beside  her  mother. 

A  reading-light  beneath  a  rose-silk  shade 
burned  on  the  stand  at  Ida's  bedside.  Save 
for  that,  there  was  no  other  light  in  the  room. 
Everything  was  in  deep  shadow  except  the 
enormous  bed  and  its  slight  occupant. 

"  Where  have  you  been,  Honey  ? "  Ida 
asked,  plaintively. 

"  In  the  library,  talking  to  Miss  Binford." 

"  All  this  time  ?  " 

"  Yes,  mother." 

"  You  poor  lamb !  You  must  be  worn  out. 
People  don't  seem  to  realize  how  calls  of  con- 
dolence harrow  the  bereaved.  I  wonder  why 
Mary  kept  you  so  long  1  She  didn't  stay 
here  but  a  few  minutes.  I  told  her  I  appre- 
ciated her  coming.  But  of  course  she  can't 
understand  my  grief — she's  never  had  a 
child." 

"  I  think,"  Jean  answered,  "  she  understands 
wonderfully." 

Her  eyes  were  shining ;  her  cheeks  were 
flushed  with  excitement.  Ida  looked  up  at 
her  anxiously. 

"  You  look  feverish,"  she  saicjL  "  Doea 
your  head  ache,  or  anything  ?  " 

"  No,  mother/' 

"  Let  me  feel  your  hand." 


11  ALL  TIMES  ARE  BRA  VE  TIMES"  45 

Jean  obeyed. 

"  It's  hot,  Lovey." 

Jean's  eyes  flashed. 

"  I'm  not  sick ! "  she  cried,  hotly.  "  Please 
don't  « baby '  me  !     I " 

Ida  began  to  cry. 

"  You're  all  the  baby  I  have  left  now,"  she 
wept.  "I  must  'baby'  you  1  I  can't  give 
up  both  my  babies  at  once." 

Jean  wavered ;  the  Vision  grew  dim ;  she 
felt  sick  at  heart.  A  bellowing  Beaudricourt 
would  have  been  so  much  easier  1  How  could 
any  one  hold  to  an  ideal  in  such  an  atmos- 
phere as  this  ? 

Then  Miss  Mary's  words  came  back  to  her : 
"The  battle-ground  will  be  very  different 
from  any  that  Jeanne  knew ;  and  I  think  it 
will  often  be  tremendously  difficult  to  fight 
on — because  it'll  be  soft /  Do  you  remember 
that  sentence  in  our  school  readers,  where 
they  begin  Victor  Hugo's  description  of  the 
battle  of  Waterloo  :  '  Had  it  not  rained  on 
the  night  of  the  17th  of  June,  181 5,  the  future 
of  Europe  would  have  been  changed '  ? 
Napoleon  couldn't  get  his  artillery  into  the 
soft  field,  and  without  his  big  guns  he  was 
lost.  I  suspect  that  there'll  be  lots  of  times 
when  you  can't  do  the  real  fighting  your  soul 
longs  to  do,  because  you  can't  get  your  big 


46     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

guns  into  a  soft  field.  But  doii 7 you  retreat  J 
.    .     .     Do  I  talk  in  riddles  ?  " 

And  Jean  (who  like  most  young  persons 
and  those  in  whom  the  soul  is  still  eager, 
grasped  symbolisms  far,  far  more  readily  than 
plain  statements  of  the  same  truths)  had  an- 
swered quickly,  "  I  understand." 

"  Mother,"  she  said  resolutely,  "  I  could  be 
something  lots  better  than  a  baby  to  you  if 
you'd  let  me." 

"There  isn't  anything  better  than  a  baby," 
Ida  declared,  without  waiting  to  hear  what 
Jean  had  to  suggest.  "  If  mothers  had  their 
way,  they'd  never  let  their  babies  grow  up. 
They'd  keep  them  little  and  cuddlesome.  I 
think  the  nicest  time  of  all  is  before  they  even 
begin  to  walk.  Then  they're  all  yours.  The 
more  they  grow  up,  the  less  they  belong  to  you." 

"  But  if  nobody  grew  up,  who'd  be  the 
fathers  and  mothers  by  and  by  ?  Who'd  do 
the  world's  work  ?  " 

"Oh,  I  suppose  there'd  be  parents  who 
wanted  their  children  to  grow.  And  of 
course,  none  of  us  can  keep  our  babies — so 
what's  the  use  of  talking  about  it?" 

"  Sometimes,"  Jean  ventured,  shyly,  "  it's 
ever  so  interesting  to  talk  about  what  you 
would  do  if  you  could,  even  though  you  know 
you  can't." 


"ALL  TIMES  ARE  BRAVE  TIMES"  47 

Ida  received  this  cryptic  utterance  without 
comment ;  she  was  thinking  about  the  days 
when  her  twin  girls  were  "  cuddlesome,"  and 
how  tiny  they  had  been — like  dolls — and  how 
"  cute "  they  had  looked,  side  by  side  on  a 
big,  lace-trimmed  pillow  when  they  were  ex- 
hibited to  gurgling  visitors.  When  she  could 
pick  them  up  and  lay  them  down  at  will, 
dress  and  undress  them,  show  them  off  and 
play  with  them  as  she  had  with  her  inanimate 
dolls,  they  had  more  nearly  satisfied  her  de- 
sires than  at  any  other  time.  From  the  mo- 
ment they  began  to  develop  wishes  of  their 
own,  she  had  been  lamenting  the  loss  of  her 
babies.  She  told  Jim  that  when  a  woman  had 
such  intense  love  of  her  children  as  she  had, 
nothing  satisfied  her  except  "  being  all  in  all  " 
to  them ;  when  they  began  to  have  playmates, 
to  go  to  school,  to  do  things  in  which  she 
could  have  no  part,  she  was  "pathetically 
lonesome." 

Jim  came  in  while  Ida  was  lamenting  her 
babies,  and  Jean  was  trying  to  think  how 
not  to  retreat.  He  was  one  of  those  big  men 
who  all  but  infallibly  marry  little  women  and 
who  practically  never  recognize  the  vanity 
that  makes  them  do  it.  Ida's  littleness 
emphasized  Jim's  bigness ;  her  weakness 
emphasized  his  strength ;   her  clinging  de- 


48    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

pendence  was  a  constant  reminder  of  his 
unfailing  dependability.  He  liked  to  feel 
his  strength.  Instinctively,  he  preferred  that 
feeling  to  any  other ;  and  in  his  marriage  he 
had  obeyed  this  instinct.  The  same  soul 
qualities  which  made  him  content  to  be  that 
kind  of  husband  gave  him  satisfaction  in 
being  the  same  kind  of  father :  a  lavish 
"  provider,"  a  tender  protector,  a  big,  strong 
man  who  stood  between  his  girls  and  every- 
thing that  was  harsh  or  difficult.  Knowing 
himself  to  be  all  these  things,  which  were  his 
ideal  of  what  a  father  should  be,  Jim  was 
very  happy  in  his  fatherhood.  If  any  one 
had  suggested  to  him  that  he  was  using  his 
fatherhood  to  humour  his  own  emotions,  he 
would  have  been  deeply  hurt,  and  more 
deeply  mystified.  Everybody  said  he  was 
a  man  who  lived  for  his  family.  He  felt  that 
he  did  live  for  them — to  keep  them  happy 
and  comfortable.  That  it  might  also  be 
any  part  of  his  duty  towards  them  to  make 
them  strong  and  efficient  for  life  had  not 
seriously  occurred  to  him ;  and  if  it  had,  he 
would  have  jshirked  the  task.  Jim  loved 
the  "  glow "  of  feeling  that  he  was  a  pur- 
veyor of  delights.  His  relish  for  this  kept 
him  perpetually  "  standing  treat "  to  his  fam- 
ily, as  some  men  stand  treat  to  crowds  of 


"ALL  TIMES  ARE  BRAVE  TIMES"  49 

acquaintances  or  friends — prompted  not  by 
the  recipients'  needs,  but  by  the  giver's  love 
of  giving. 

He  bent  to  kiss  Ida ;  to  ask  her  how  she 
had  been  all  day ;  to  listen  to  her  detailed 
account  of  the  day's  length  and  sadness. 
All  the  while  his  left  arm  encircled  Jean — 
Jean  who  was  earnestly  considering  him  for 
the  first  time  in  his  possible  relation  to  the 
Vision,  and  who — somehow — was  not  greatly 
encouraged  thereby. 

"  And  what  has  Jean  been  doing  ? "  he 
asked,  turning  to  her  when  Ida's  narrative 
had  reached  a  pause.  "  Seems  to  me  you're 
looking  brighter  and  better  than  I've  seen 
you  look  for  a — long  time." 

"  I  think  she's  feverish,"  her  mother  inter- 
posed. "  I  wanted  to  take  her  temperature. 
But  she  says  she  doesn't  want  to  be  '  baby-ed.' 
I  tell  her  she's  all  the  baby  we  have,  now, 
and  she  must  be  patient  with  us  if  we  give 
her  double  love  and  care." 

Ida's  voice  quavered,  broke.  Jim  bent  all 
his  energies  to  consoling  her.  Jean  stood  by 
and  pondered — certain  phrases  ringing  in 
her  memory  :  "  We  all  owe  the  same  debt — 
courage."  "We  all  have  the  same  birth- 
right— bravery." 

"  I'm  not  sick,"  she  reiterated.     "  I'm  just 


50    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

interested  in  something — excited  about  it 
It's  something  I  want  to  do — to  be !  Miss 
Mary  Binford  told  me  about  it,  and  she  said 
the  first  thing  I  must  do  was  to  tell  you." 

Jean  was  as  one  trying  to  translate.  The 
language,  the  imagery,  the  illustrations,  in 
which  this  thing  had  come  to  her,  must  be 
rendered  into  some  kind  of  speech  intelligible 
to  persons  who  would  certainly  receive  any 
mention  of  Visions  as  a  fever-symptom  surer 
than  the  reading  of  the  thermometer. 

"  Mary  Binford  !  "  Jim  exclaimed.  "  Was 
she  here  ?  All  sorts  of  people  turn  up  when 
they  know  you're  in  sorrow — don't  they  ?  " 

"  I  have  hardly  seen  her  in  years,"  Ida 
murmured.     "  I  hear  she's  quite  successful." 

"  What  does  she  do  ?  "  Jean  asked,  eagerly. 

"  She's  a  painter,"  her  mother  answered. 
"  I  believe  she  does  mostly  what  they  call 
mural  painting — on  walls,  you  know.  Some- 
body told  me  she  is  considered  very  good — 
quite  wonderful,  in  fact." 

"  Doesn't  want  to  make  a  painter  of  you, 
dear,  does  she  ?  "  Jim  asked  Jean. 

"  No,  sir.  She  didn't  even  tell  me  she  was 
a  painter.  She  said  she  had  studied  in  Paris, 
years  ago.  But  she  didn't  say  if  she  kept  it 
up.  She  was  just  trying  to  comfort  me  and 
help  me  to  be  brave." 


"ALL  TIMES  ARE  BRAVE  TIMES"  51 

"  It's  so  easy  to  sit  around  and  tell  other 
people  how  brave  they  must  be,"  Ida  com- 
mented, plaintively.  "  People  ought  to  realize 
how  cruel  it  is." 

"  She  wasn't  cruel  at  all ! "  Jean  cried, 
warmly.  "  She  was  very,  very  kind ;  and 
she  helped  me  more  than  anybody  has.  She 
says  it's  hard  to  sit  still  and  be  brave — espe- 
cially when  you're  young;  that  young  people 
naturally  want  to  do  things — brave  things." 

"  What  does  she  want  you  to  do,  Honey  ?  " 

"  It  isn't  what  she  wants  me  to  do ;  it's 
what  she  made  me  want  to  do,"  Jean  ex- 
plained. 

Jim  laughed.  "There's  hair-splitting  for 
you  !  "  he  cried. 

Jean  winced.  In  the  dark  library,  sitting 
close  to  Miss  Mary,  whispering  about  The 
Maid  of  France,  and  about  Dante's  debt,  it 
was  easy  to  feel  brave  and  strong.  But  here, 
on  the  edge  of  mother's  bed,  with  jest  in 
Dad's  attitude  and  a  thermomoter  in  Moth- 
er's, it  was  difficult  to  believe  in  anything, 
but  most  difficult  of  all  things  to  believe  in 
herself.  Yet  that,  Miss  Mary  said,  was  what 
carried  Jeanne  The  Maid  to  victory.  She  be- 
lieved the  Voices  when  they  told  her  she 
must  save  France.  Jean  reminded  herself  of 
The  Maid  before  bawling  Beaudricourt ;  be- 


52     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

fore  ease-loving"  Charles  and  his  slothful, 
sneering  court ;  before  the  supercilious  theo- 
logians at  Poitiers  to  whom  she  replied  :  "  I 
know  not  A  from  B,  but  I  am  commanded 
by  the  Lord  of  Heaven  to  deliver  Orleans 
and  to  crown  the  King  at  Rheims." 

"  I  want  to  do  this,"  Jean  said — and  her 
voice  had  a  ring  of  determination  which 
caused  both  her  parents  to  regard  her  in 
startled  wonder — "  I  want  to  help  some  oth- 
ers— girls,  like  me,  perhaps — to  know  what 
a  brave  thing  life  is.  I  didn't  know  until  to- 
day. I've  read  it  in  books — but  they  were 
all  about  other  days.  I  knew  there  used  to 
be  things  in  the  world  that  a  girl  could  do 
that  made  her  feel  as  if  she — well,  as  if  the 
world  needed  her  to  do  her  very  best.  But  I 
thought  there  wasn't  much  for  a  girl  to  do 
now.  I  know  other  girls  who  think  the  same 
way.  We've  often  wished  we  had  lived  in 
the  days  the  stories  tell  about,  when  things 
happened,  and  people  were  brave  and  dar- 
ing. Margaret  and  I  used  to  wish  that  most 
all  the  time.  We  used  to  choose  which  times 
we'd  rather  have  lived  in.  To-day,  Miss 
Mary  showed  me  that  the  most  wonderful 
times  any  girl  ever  lived  in  are  right  now. 
And  she  made  me  see  that  all  times  are  brave 
times — for  brave  hearts." 


V 

"OUK  BIRTHRIGHT  IS  BRAVERY" 

IDA  thought  she  understood.  "  I  can't 
have  you  going  in  queer  places,  among 
queer  people,"  she  declared,  with  more 
decision  than  she  usually  showed  about  any- 
thing. "  I  hope  Mary  Binford  didn't  put 
ideas  like  that  into  your  head.  You  are  the 
only  baby  we  have  now — Daddy  and  I — and 
we  can't  let  you  do  anything  that  might  in- 
jure your  health." 

"No,  Honey-lamb,"  Jim  said,  more  plead- 
ingly than  commandingly.  "  You  must  be 
careful.  I  like  you  to  be  charitable,  and  all 
like  that.  You  can  get  up  bazaars,  or  make 
fancy  work,  or  do  things  for  the  poor.  But 
I  wouldn't  be  willing  for  you  to  go  in  slums 
or  tenements,  or  run  any  risks.  It  isn't  neces- 
sary.    There  are  plenty  of  people  to  do  that." 

Jean  checked  herself  just  as  she  was  about 
to  say,  inwardly,  "  It's  hopeless,"  and  stood 
her  ground. 

"  There  are  people  in  the  world  who  need 
help  besides  those  who  live  in  the  slums,' 
53 


54    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

she  said,  earnestly.  "  I  don't  believe  any 
girl  in  the  slums  needed  help  as  much  as  I 
needed  it  to-day,  when  Miss  Mary  came  and 
showed  it  to  me.  Anyhow,  no  girl  could 
have  needed  it  any  more  than  I  did.  I 
wanted  to  die.  She  made  me  want  to  live 
and  to  do  something.  The  reason  I  didn't 
care  to  live,  before,  was  because  I  didn't  see 
anything  for  me  to  do.  As  soon  as  you  see 
what  you  can  do,  you  can  hardly  help  want- 
ing to  live  and  do  it.  If  it's  something  hard 
to  do,  you — well,  you  feel  proud,  somehow — 
if  you  believe  you're  the  one  who  must  do 
it ;  it's — it's  like  living  in  the  days  the  splen- 
did stories  are  about." 

Jim  and  Ida  exchanged  apprehensive 
glances.     Ida  began  to  cry. 

"What  is  it  you  want  to  do,  Honey?" 
Jim  inquired  of  Jean — so  he  could  demon- 
strate to  her  its  impossibility. 

"  It — -it  doesn't  sound  like  much,"  Jean 
faltered,  suddenly  overcome  by  the  littleness 
of  her  project  when  it  was  translated  into  this 
literal,  matter-of-fact  speech.  "  It  was  just 
that  I  want  to  tell  the  girls  I  know  the  things 
Miss  Mary  and  I  talked  about  so  we  could 
have  a  kind  of  league  or  something.  We 
didn't  know  just  how  it  would  work  out.  We 
have  to  see  that." 


"  OUR  BIRTHRIGHT  IS  BRAVERY"  55 

Her  father  laughed  his  big,  good-natured, 
tolerant  laugh. 

"  Bless  her  heart !  "  he  cried.  "  Then  why 
did  she  give  her  daddy  and  her  mammy  a 
scare  like  she  was  going  to  teach  the  little 
cannibals,  or  nurse  the  lepers,  or  something 
of  that  sort  ?  Go  ahead  and  have  your  club, 
Lovey.  What  is  it  you  want  Dad  to  do  ? 
Buy  you  a  bunch  of  badges  ?  Pay  for  the 
ice-cream  ?  Get  you  a  book  of  by-laws  ? 
You  know  I  want  to  help  you  all  I  can.  Per- 
haps I  can  be  an  honourary  member." 

Jean  flung  her  arms  around  his  neck  and 
hugged  him  hard. 

"  You  can  be ! "  she  cried,  happily.  "  You 
are  the  first  one.  That's  part  of  the  plan — all 
fathers  and  mothers  have  to  be  in  it.  They 
don't  have  to  give  anything.  They  just  have 
to  be  something.  We  all  have  to  !  I  can't 
tell  you,  yet,  much  more  about  it — except 
this  :  it's  for  all  of  us,  so  we  can  keep  closer 
than  we  ever  were  before.  It's  kind  of  like 
a  crusade ;  only,  instead  of  going  far  away 
from  home  to  look  for  something  holy  and 
precious,  you  go  home  and  look  for  it ;  and 
if  you  look,  you  can  hardly  help  finding  it." 

"  It  sure  does  sound  mysterious  !  "  Jim  de- 
clared— relieved  rather  than  interested. 

"  It   isn't  mysterious  at  all !  "  Jean  replied. 


56     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

"  But  there  isn't  much  to  tell  yet — until  we 
get  it  planned." 

"  Well,"  her  mother  remarked  with  an  air 
of  gentle  wonder  at  Jean's  consolability,  "  if 
it's  something  you  can  take  an  interest  in, 
I'm  sure  I'm  very  glad.  You're  young.  It's 
only  natural  you  should  want  to  live,  and  to 
be  interested  in  life.  I  shall  never  be  inter- 
ested in  anything  again  except  in  you  and 
Dad.  But  it's  better  for  you  not  to  feel  that 
way.     You  have  your  life  to  live." 

The  next  morning  when  Jim  Fahrlow  felt 
in  his  pocket  where  he  kept  his  reading 
glasses,  preparatory  to  unfolding  his  paper  on 
the  car,  he  found  a  note.  He  never  put  let- 
ters or  other  papers  in  that  pocket,  so  he  took 
this  one  out  to  examine.  It  was  in  Jean's 
writing,  and  it  read  : 

"  Dearest  Father  in  the  Whole 

World  : 

"  Some  things  are  so  hard  to  explain. 
I  didn't  tell  you  half  that  I  wanted  to  about 
the  plan  last  night.  I  want  to  tell  you  more. 
There  are  times  that  help  us  to  say  certain 
things,  and  other  times  that  make  us  feel  we 
just  can't  say  them.  I've  been  trying  to 
think  how  I  could  tell  you  more  about  this 
plan.  It  seems  to  be  the  kind  of  thing  you 
can  tell  to  only  one  at  a  time.     I'm  thinking 


"  OUR  BIRTHRIGHT  IS  BRAVERY"  57 

of  a  way  to  tell  Mother,  too.  Some  evening 
when  you  come  home  a  little  early,  and  you 
feel  real  confidential,  will  you  come  and  peep 
into  the  library  first  thing-  of  all  ?  And  if  you 
find  '  a  certain  girl '  there,  in  the  dark,  will 
you  sit  down  beside  her  where  she  can  be 
awful  close  to  you,  and  let  her  try  to  tell  you 
some  things  that  are  kind  of  hard  for  her  to 
say  because  she's  so  afraid  you'll  only  smile 
at  her.  If  you  smile  in  the  dark,  she  can't 
see  you.  So  maybe  she  can  go  on  telling 
you. 

"  With  more  love  than  I  can  put  on  paper, 

"Jean." 

"  Bless  her  darling  heart!"  he  mused  when 
he  had  finished  reading  the  note.  "  What  a 
queer  little  creature  she  is  !  I  wonder  if  all 
girls  are  queer  like  that  ?  Poor  baby !  I 
dare  say  since  Margaret  went  away  it  has 
seemed  to  her  that  no  one  in  the  world  quite 
understands  her.  Well,  it's  a  cinch  her 
daddy's  going  to  try  !  " 

Jean  was  in  the  library  when  he  got  home. 
The  room  was  dark,  and  the  idea  of  his  Jean 
sitting  there,  bereft  of  her  twin,  lonesome, 
waiting  for  him,  touched  him  infinitely.  He 
gathered  her  into  his  arms  and  held  her  close. 
And  there,  sitting  beside  him  on  the  big 
davenport,  Jean  tried  to  tell  him,  not  the  de- 
tails but  the  gist  of  what  Miss  Mary  had  told 


58     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

her,  and  what  she  had  thought  out   in  the 
twenty-four  hours  intervening. 

"  She  said  a  great  many  people  are  cheated 
out  of  their  birthright,  and  so  they  never  can 
pay  their  debt.  Our  birthright  is  bravery — 
strength.  And  our  debt  is  courage.  She 
said  those  who  cheat  us  don't  often  realize 
what  they're  doing.  Often  they  think  they're 
giving  us  things  when  they're  only  taking 
our  best  thing  away.  Suppose  there  was  a 
king,  she  said,  who  ruled  over  a  very  tur- 
bulent kingdom.  Suppose  he  had  a  little 
son — his  heir.  And  suppose  that,  instead  of 
training  that  little  son  to  be  sturdy  and  stead- 
fast, the  king  coddled  him  and  pampered 
him  and  let  him  grow  up  a  weakling.  When 
the  son  had  to  be  king,  the  kingdom  would 
probably  rise  up  against  him  and  overthrow 
him  and  perhaps  murder  him.  She  spoke 
of  a  lot  of  kings  this  had  happened  to.  And 
it  happens  to  commoners,  too,  she  said.  We 
all  have  a  kingdom  to  come  into,  and  it  is 
life.  And  if  we  are  not  trained  to  rule  it,  it 
will  overthrow  us.  It  seemed  a  terrible  thing 
to  Jeanne  d'Arc,  Miss  Mary  said,  that  the 
Dauphin  who  was  born  to  rule  France  couldn't 
claim  his  birthright,  and  so  couldn't  pay  his 
debt  to  his  poor  country.  So  she  went  to 
help  him.     We  don't  care  much,  now,  about 


"OUR  BIR  TH RIGHT  IS  BRA  VER  F"  59 

kings  on  their  thrones,  Miss  Mary  said. 
What  we  care  about,  now,  is  to  have  every 
soul  come  into  its  kingdom  and  reign,  not  be 
overthrown.  And  she  saw  how  I  might  do 
a  great  service,  like  Jeanne,  if  I  could  help 
people  of  any  kind,  but  principally  girls  like 
myself,  to  get  their  birthright,  and  to  rule — 
rule  themselves,  and  rule  their  kingdoms." 

"  Did  she  tell  you  how  you  were  to  do  this, 
Honey  ?  " 

"  No,  sir.  She  said  she  didn't  know  how. 
She  just  saw  the  Vision  of  what  might  be 
done.  She  said  she'd  think  hard  and  see 
what  ideas  came  to  her,  but  that  probably 
I'd  see  the  way  clear  myself.  The  principal 
thing  is,  not  to  wait  until  you  can  see  the 
whole  way,  but  to  go  forward  over  what  you 
can  see.     So  I  began  to-day." 

"You  did?" 

"  Yes,  sir ;  I  told  Isabel  Corrie  and  Adelaide 
Gerson  about  their  birthright." 

"  Why  those  two  ?  " 

"  Because  it  seemed  as  if  they'd  like  to 
know — to-day.  Isabel  was  crying  about  her 
geometry.  She  hates  geometry — I  guess 
most  girls  do.  Isabel  wants  to  be  an  artist, 
and  she  says  it's  a  waste  of  time  for  her  to 
study  mathematics.  She  begged  her  parents 
to  have  her  excused  from  mathematics,  but 


60    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

her  father  wouldn't ;  he  said  it's  good  for  her 
because  she  doesn't  like  it — that  life  is  full  of 
things  we  don't  like,  but  have  to  do,  and 
school  is  the  place  to  learn  how  to  make  our- 
selves do  them.  He  said  we  don't  need  to 
go  to  school  to  learn  how  to  make  ourselves 
do  the  things  that  are  agreeable.  Isabel  felt 
very  bad.  So  I  told  her  about  her  birth- 
right, and  how  it  was  evident  her  father 
wanted  her  to  have  it.  And  she  said  she'd 
never  thought  about  it  that  way.  She's  go- 
ing to  belong  to  the — whatever  we  call  it ; 
we  haven't  decided  on  a  name  yet.  She's 
going  to  tackle  geometry  as  if  it  were  an 
English  or  Burgundian  army  blocking  her 
way  to  Rheims,  where  her  crown  is.  And 
she's  going  to  tell  her  father  that  she's  ever 
and  ever  so  grateful  to  him  because  he  wants 
her  to  be  a  good,  brave  fighter  of  life's  battles, 
and  not  a  weakling. 

"Then  I  told  Adelaide,  because  she  was 
unhappy,  too.  Her  mother  has  been  sick  a 
long  time,  and  the  doctor  says  she  ought  to 
go  away  to  a  sanitarium.  The  Gersons  have 
a  big  family  and  a  little  house.  If  Mrs. 
Gerson  goes  away  to  get  quiet  and  rest,  so 
she  can  sleep  and  grow  strong  again,  Ade- 
laide will  have  to  give  up  school  and  stay 
home  and  do  the  housework  and  take  care 


"  OUR  BIRTHRIGHT  IS  BRAVERY"  61 

of  the  children.  She  feels  terrible.  She 
wants  her  mother  to  get  well,  but  she  hates 
like  everything  to  stop  school — she's  so  am- 
bitious. It  was  hard  for  me  to  think  what  I 
could  say  to  Adelaide,  but  I  thought  I'd  try. 
I  told  her  what  Miss  Mary  said  :  how  young 
souls  naturally  long  to  do  brave  things,  hard 
things,  but  it  isn't  often  they  get  half  enough 
chance  to  try.  She  said  that  some  of  the 
wisest  people  to-day  feel  that  schools  are 
cheating  young  folks  out  of  their  birthright, 
because  they  give  us  so  much  to  study  and 
so  little  to  do. 

" '  That's  what  Dad  told  me,'  Adelaide 
said.  '  He  told  me  that  what  I'd  learn  at 
home,  running  the  house  and  taking  care  of 
the  children,  would  probably  stand  me  in 
good  stead  a  thousand  times  in  my  life  where 
the  school  lessons  I  miss  would  help  me 
once.  I'm  going  to  look  at  it  that  way.'  So 
she  got  her  courage  up  !  And  she  and  Isabel 
both  promised  to  pass  the  word  along,  to  tell 
anybody  they  knew  that  seemed  to  need  it. 
You  can't  tell  people,  very  well,  until  they 
seem  to  need  it — you  can't  walk  up  to  a  girl 
when  she's  on  her  way  to  order  her  new  suit 
or  buy  her  new  furs,  or  going  to  a  matinee, 
and  talk  to  her  about  courage."  Jean 
laughed  at  her  own  picture.     "  You  have  to 


62    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

wait  until  the  time  comes — and  I  guess  it 
comes  to  everybody.  Miss  Mary  said  if  she 
had  come  to  me  when  I  had  Margaret  and 
was  happy,  I  wouldn't  have  felt  the  same  as 
I  do  now  about  Jeanne  and  being  like  her. 
And  I  know  I  wouldn't  have." 

"  And  what  is  it  your  dad's  to  do  for  you, 
darling  ?  " 

"  He's  to  help  me  to  be  a  good  fighter — 
please  1 "  Jean  answered  gripping  his  hand 
hard.  "  He  mustn't  smile  when  I  try  to  do 
things  that  look  too  big  or  too  hard  for  me. 
I  mean,  he  mustn't  smile  as  if  he  thought  me 
a  foolish  little  baby.  He  must  smile  the 
other  kind  of  a  smile  at  me,  and  tell  me  to  go 
ahead  and  tackle  things  and  learn  how  to 
overcome  and  to  rule — so  when  I  come  into 
my  kingdom  I  won't  be  dethroned  and 
trampled  on.  And  he's  to  help  me  make 
Mother  believe  in  me,  and  not  say  I  have  a 
fever  because  my  eyes  are  bright  with  inter- 
est ;  and  not  '  baby '  me,  when  I'm  trying  to 
— to  learn  to  do  what  the  Voices  in  me  say  I 
ought  to  do." 

"  Have  you  said  anything  more  to  her 
about  it  ?  " 

"  Not  yet.  I — don't  you  believe  Mother 
would  understand  better  if  I  didn't  say  much, 
but  just  went  ahead  and  did  what  I  could  ? 


"  OUR  BIRTHRIGHT  IS  BRAVERY"  63 

If  she  saw  that  I'm  not  a  baby,  she'd  be — 
well,  it  would  be  better,  I  think,  than  any- 
thing I  could  say  !  " 

"  I  believe  you're  right,  Honey,"  Jim 
answered.  "  I — I  feel  like  I'd  love  to  do  all 
your  righting  for  you,  bear  all  your  burdens, 
if  I  could.  But  I  can't ;  and  I  reckon  it's 
better  so ;  better  you  should  learn  to  rule 
your  own  kingdom,  as  you  say.  You  go 
ajiead  and  show  your  mother  that  you're 
something  better  than  a  baby.  Perhaps  you 
can  comfort  her.  Anyhow,  your  dad' 11  stand 
by  you  the  best  he  knows  how.  Some- 
way, I  never  thought  about  you  as  fighting 
battles,  let  alone  helping  other  people  to  fight 
theirs.  But  I  reckon  it's  all  right.  If  you 
feel  that  way,  I  don't  see  how  there  can  be 
any  question  but  that  you  should  go  ahead 
and  try.  I  don't  know  much  about  Voices. 
But  I  know  that  other  folks  besides  Jeanne 
d'Arc  have  heard  'em.  And  I  know  that 
when  they  tell  you  to  do  a  thing — like  this — 
you've  got  to  do  it — or  hate  yourself  for  re- 
fusing. You  may  fail.  But  at  least  you 
will  have  tried.  That's  right,  Honey.  That's 
life." 

"  Oh  ! "  Jean  cried,  happily.  "  If  only  the 
other  honourary  members  could  be  like  you  ! 
It's  like  the  loveliest  kind  of  a  story !     Be- 


64     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

fore,  when  you  were  always — well,  just  giv- 
ing me  things  and  petting  me,  I  couldn't  half 
appreciate  you  as  I  do  now — after  this  talk. 
I  feel  we're  comrades  now,  trudging  along 
side  by  side.  We'll  build  our  camp-fires  to- 
gether— big  you  and  little  me ! — and  drink 
out  of  the  same  what-d'ye-call-it  ? — canteen  ? 
And  you'll  teach  me  to  be  a  good  soldier. 
Oh !  I  hope  other  girls  can  have  father- 
comrades,  too  1 " 


VI 

"A  FOETUNE  WAITING  FOE  YOU" 


1 


^HEY  could,  it  seemed  !  Isabel  and 
Adelaide  both  reported  honourary 
members  who  were  glad  to  join. 
Adelaide's  mother  was  too  ill  and  nerve- 
racked  to  give  much  thought  to  the  idea  yet. 
But  it  was  a  tremendous  help  to  her  to  find 
Adelaide  reconciled  to  the  household  cares. 
Mrs.  Corrie  had  more  health  and  fewer  anx- 
ieties, and  she  heartily  approved  any  idea 
which  might  convert  Isabel  from  her  notion 
that  life  is  a  prolonged  picnic. 

"  Father  was  so  surprised  when  I  told  him 
how  I  was  going  to  tackle  geometry,"  Isabel 
reported  next  day.  "  '  Fight  it  out  along 
that  line,  and  you'll  get  somewhere,'  he 
said." 

"  I  had  a  wonderful  chance,"  Adelaide  told 
the  other  two.  "  Dad  came  home  last  night 
looking  worried  to  death.  I  could  see  him 
hide  that  look  from  Mother.  Of  course,  the 
only  way  for  her  to  have  peace  of  mind  and 
65 


66     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

get  any  benefit  from  the  rest  cure  is  to  go 
away  feeling  that  we'll  manage  all  right  at 
home  while  she's  gone.  Dad's  been  trying 
to  make  her  feel  that  way.  But  I  know  he's 
had  his  doubts  about  what  was  going  to 
happen  to  us  all  with  me  at  the  helm.  He 
came  into  the  kitchen  when  I  was  getting 
supper.  I  took  one  look  at  his  face.  And 
then,  without  even  dropping  my  paring 
knife,  I  flung  my  arms  around  him  and  said, 
'It's  going  to  be  all  right,  Old  Dearl  I'm 
going  to  make  you  proud  to  know  me  1 ' 
And — well !  I've  had  him  and  he's  had  me 
for  seventeen  years ;  but  we'd  never  really 
stood  together  till  that  minute.  It  was 
great !  I've  always  loved  those  stories 
where  they  were  defending  the  stockade, 
or  the  castle,  or  something-or-other.  And 
the  fight  was  going  against  them,  when  the 
fine  young  heroine  jumped  into  the  breach 
and  grabbed  a  gun  or  a  pike,  and  held  the 
fort.  I  always  felt  I  could  do  that  if  I  had  a 
chance — though  I  suppose,  really,  I'd  have 
been  under  the  bed,  with  my  fingers  in  my 
ears  !  But  here  was  my  chance !  I  saw  it 
when  you  showed  it  to  me,  Jean.  '  Into  the 
breach — quick  ! '  I  said  to  myself.     And  in  I 

went.     While  Dad !     Well ! " 

Thus  "The   March  to  The  Uncrowned" 


"A  FORTUNE  WAITING  FOR  YOU"  67 

was  formed.     It  was  Miss  Mary  who  sug- 
gested the  name. 

"  You  want  something  to  remind  you  of 
Jeanne  d'Arc,"  she  said,  "  and  yet  something 
to  remind  you  how  different  your  purpose  is 
from  hers.  That  miserable  Charles  whom 
she  fought  to  crown  was  worth  mighty  little 
to  France.  And  his  son,  Louis  XI,  was 
about  the  worst  monster  who  ever  sat  on 
any  throne.  Jeanne  saved  her  nation  from 
English  rule,  but  she  wasn't  able  to  deliver 
it  from  the  horrors  of  war,  from  the  oppres- 
sion of  taxes  that  left  the  people  little  to  live 
on  or  to  live  for,  nor  to  secure  to  the  poor 
and  downtrodden  a  single  right  that  eased 
their  lot  or  bettered  their  prospects.  Your 
fight  is  as  different  as  our  day  is  different 
from  Jeanne's.  We  know  that  no  country 
can  be  made  a  happy  country  because  one 
king  instead  of  another  wears  its  crown. 
We  know  that  what  makes  national  happi- 
ness is  the  greatest  possible  number  of 
persons  wearing  their  crowns — their  birth- 
rights. Your  league  is  formed  not  to  take 
one  king  to  Rheims,  but  to  take  many ;  it  is 
formed  not  to  desolate  homes  by  war,  but  to 
strengthen  homes  in  peace.  The  Vision 
that  comes  to  you  could  never  have  come  to 
Jeanne.     In  her  day,  no  one  had  dreamed  of 


68    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

the  splendid  things  that  are  filling  the  great 
minds  of  the  world  to-day.  If  Jeanne  were 
living,  now,  I  think  her  Voices  would  lead 
her  on  some  such  crusade  as  this  that  you're 
starting  on.  But  of  course  that's  only  my 
guess.  What's  sure  is,  that  you  girls  have 
started  on  a  big,  brave,  beautiful  thing  which, 
if  it  can  spread  far  enough  and  strike  deep 
enough,  will  do  more  for  your  country  than 
all  Jeanne's  fighting  did  for  hers.  When  she 
was  reminded  that  the  French  were  so  terror- 
smitten,  so  hopeless,  she  could  not  rally  them 
as  fighters,  she  said :  '  When  they  hear  the 
drums,  they  will  march.'  And  they  did. 
When  those  you  hope  to  win  to  your  army 
see  your  colours  flying,  they  will  march.  At 
first,  you'll  have  to  do  as  she  did :  talk  and 
talk  and  talk — to  Beaudricourt,  to  Charles,  to 
the  doctors  at  Poitiers  ;  but  by  and  by,  when 
you  get  started  and  begin  to  move  through 
the  country,  recruits  will  come  hastening  to 
you." 

The  meeting  was  in  Jean's  library — at 
twilight ;  and  the  lamps  were  not  lighted. 
Only  Jean  and  Isabel  were  present,  one  on 
either  side  of  Miss  Mary  on  the  big  brown 
davenport.  Adelaide  was  "  on  duty "  at 
home. 

"  Adelaide  has  a  difficult  post,"  Miss  Mary 


"A  FORTUNE  WAITING  FOR  YOU''  69 

said.  "  She's  holding  a  fort,  but  she  mustn't 
feel  that  the  army  has  forgotten  her.  It's  so 
much  easier  to  march  than  to  stay  on  guard 
duty.  You  girls  must  keep  her  in  touch 
with  all  that's  going  on,  so  she  doesn't  feel 
left  behind." 

They  promised  that  they  would  do  this. 

"And  now,"  said  Miss  Mary,  "let  me  tell 
you  what  I've  learned  about  the  uncrowned, 
and  how  we  may  get  to  them.  In  a  news- 
paper, the  other  day,  I  saw  an  advertisement 
which  began :  '  Perhaps  there  is  a  fortune 
waiting  for  you,'  and  went  on  to  tell  that  the 
heirs  to  thousands  of  fortunes  were  being 
sought  all  over  the  world.  It  seems  that 
there  is  something  called  '  The  Book  of  Heirs,' 
which  gives  the  names  of  many  of  those  be- 
ing sought.  And  I  dare  say  it's  a  tremen- 
dously popular  and  well-read  book  1  I've 
thought  a  great  deal  about  it — how  surprised 
to  find  their  names  there  some  persons  would 
be  ;  and  how  disappointed  others  would  be 
because  they  were  not  in  it.  And  then  I  got 
thinking  about  the  kind  of  fortune  every  one 
is  heir  to,  although  not  all  know  it.  I  thought 
of  all  the  uncrowned  who  don't  even  suspect 
that  they  have  a  birthright  awaiting  them. 
And  I  wondered  and  wondered  how  we  could 
begin  to  tell  them." 


70    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

"  The  hard  thing  is  to  get  them  to  believe 
it,"  Jean  interposed.  "  You  tell  them,  and 
they  think  you're  crazy." 

"  And  they  don't  even  send  you  to  the 
learned  doctors  at  Poitiers  to  find  out  if 
you're  crazy — do  they  ?  They  don't  even 
give  you  a  chance  to  defend  the  faith  that  is 
in  you.  That  is  one  of  the  hard  things  in  our 
way.  But  if  we  get  to  them  when  they  are 
feeling  their  need,  we'll  get  a  hearing — at 
least.  You,  Jean,  knew  when  to  tell  Isabel 
and  Adelaide.  And,  you  see,  they  were  ready 
to  hear  and  to  believe.  They  had  a  fight  to 
make,  and  they  didn't  know  just  how  to  make 
it  until  they  heard  of  their  birthright,  their 
fortune." 

"  Mine  was  such  a  little,  foolish  fight," 
Isabel  whispered,  shamedly.  "  I  don't  feel  as 
if  I  ought  to  be  in  the  same  army  with  dear, 
brave,  wonderful  Jean  and  Adelaide." 

"  It  wasn't  a  little,  foolish  fight,  dear,"  Miss 
Mary  answered,  "  if  in  making  it  you  learned 
that  doing  hard  things,  things  you  don't  like 
to  do,  is  splendid  soldier-exercise.  Why,  of 
the  little  band  of  followers  who  went  with 
Jeanne  from  Vaucouleurs  to  Chinon,  most  of 
them  had  to  be  taught  to  ride  a  horse  and  to 
use  arms  ;  they  knew  nothing  about  the  first 
business  of  soldiery — yet  they  started  off  with 


"A  FORTUNE  WATTING  FOR  YOU"  71 

her  to  carry  the  Dauphin  to  be  crowned  at 
Rheims.  It  is  said  they  suffered  so  from 
saddle-soreness,  on  those  night  rides  towards 
Chinon,  that  it  took  all  their  pluck  and  per- 
severance and  all  their  loyalty  to  Jeanne,  to 
keep  them  on  their  way.  The  little  battles, 
which  sometimes  seem  almost  ridiculous,  usu- 
ally come  first,  dear.  Then  we  go  on  to 
Orleans  I " 

"  I'm  going  on ! "  Isabel  cried.  "  I've  won 
the  first  real  fight  of  my  life,  and  I  know  how 
splendid  it  is  to  struggle  and  make  yourself 
do  things  and  feel  that  you  are  the — the " 

"  The  captain  of  your  soul  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  We  must  all  learn  those  verses  of  Hen- 
ley's," Miss  Mary  said.  "  And  there  are 
some  other  things  with  power  to  cheer  that 
we'll  take  with  us  instead  of  script  in  our 
purses.  I'll  write  them  out,  so  we  can  mem- 
orize them — they'll  be  our  battle  songs.  And 
when  we  march  with  the  spirit  and  fervour 
they  put  into  us,  people  who  '  hear  our 
drums,'  as  Jeanne  said,  will  march  with  us. 
But  at  first  we  shall  have  to  pick  recruits  and 
try  to  enlist  them — later,  they  will  come  to 
us.  At  first  we'll  go  to  those  whose  needs 
we  know.  Some  we  shall  find  in  great  need, 
and  some  we  shall  find  in  less.     The  great 


72     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

needs  that  make  souls  cry  out  for  fortitude 
are  death,  and  sore-suffering,  and  dire  pov- 
erty, and  despairing  weariness,  and  shame, 
and  separation  from  those  they  love.  Every 
hour  of  every  day,  all  about  us,  there  are 
people  doing  battle  with  despair.  Some  of 
them  are  fighting  so  bravely  that  we  can  only, 
as  we  think  of  them,  thrill  with  wonder  and 
with  gratefulness — for  their  courage.  Others 
are  losing  ground — yielding  inch  by  inch  ; 
they  need  reinforcement.  To  them  we  can 
go.  Some  of  them  are  in  hospitals,  and  some 
are  in  houses  of  mourning ;  and  some  are  in 
what  most  people  call  '  the  slums,'  and  some 
are  in  prisons  or  other  places  where  society 
shuts  away  folk  who  have  ill-used  their  lib- 
erty. I  don't  want  to  suggest  too  specifically. 
You'll  know,  better  than  I  could  tell  you, 
where  you  feel  as  if  you  could  do  most  serv- 
ice. But  I  did  think  I  might  suggest  this  : 
the  field  is  so  vast,  I'm  inclined  to  believe  you 
would  get  less  discouraged  if  you  tried  to 
cover  only  a  part  of  it — only  girls  of  some- 
where near  your  own  ages.  We  read  a  great 
deal,  now,  about  '  the  difficult  years,'  '  the 
wasted  years,'  '  the  dangerous  years,'  of 
youth,  and  particularly  of  girls — by  which 
most  people  mean  the  years  between  fourteen 
and   eighteen.     In   those   years,  girls — very 


"A  FORTUNE  WAITING  FOR  YOU"  73 

many  of  them,  at  any  rate — determine  what 
kind  of  a  fight  they're  going  to  make.  And 
to  some  of  us  who  love  girls  very  tenderly 
and  who  think  there  is  hardly  anything  else 
in  all  the  world  more  important  than  the 
ideals  which  girls  develop  in  those  years  when 
our  ideals  mean  more  to  us  than  anything 
else  in  life,  it  seems  that  there  isn't  half 
enough — no,  not  one  hundredth  part  enough  1 
— being  done  to  help  girls  realize  their  birth- 
right and  their  debt.  Why  ! "  Miss  Mary's 
voice  had  a  ring  in  it  that  thrilled  Jean  and 
Isabel  clear  through.  "  Do  you  girls  know 
that  the  reason  so  many,  many  girls  are  un- 
happy in  those  years  that  we  speak  of,  is  be- 
cause those  are  the  years  when  Nature  is  fill- 
ing them  full  of  the  capacity  for  heroism  ;  and 
people — not  wicked  old  uncles,  but  parents 
and  teachers  who  don't  even  know  they  are 
unkind — are  not  letting  the  girls  do  anything 
heroic.  The  most  splendid  thing  Nature 
ever  gives  to  any  creature  to  do  or  be  is  to 
be  a  mother.  You  girls  know  that  it  takes 
bravery — great  bravery — to  bring  life  into  the 
world?" 

The  girls  nodded,  gravely. 

"  And  you  know  that  we  are  made  ready 
for  bravery  in  a  wonderful  way — taught  and 
inspired  and  thrilled  ?    At  least  that  is  Na- 


74    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

ture's  plan.  She  reckons  that  girls  are  get- 
ting ready  to  be  mothers,  to  risk  their  lives 
and  to  endure  great  agony,  that  they  may 
bring  forth  the  children  of  men.  She  knows, 
too,  that  not  many  girls  could  face  that  task 
unless  their  hearts  were  full  of  love.  So  she's 
teaching  them  how  to  love.  The  reason  those 
years  are  dangerous  years  for  so  many  girls 
is  because  they  don't  realize  the  tremendous 
importance  of  the  lessons  they  must  learn — 
so  they  don't  half  learn  them.  Some  girls 
know  they  want  to  do  heroic  things,  but  they 
think  they  have  nothing  heroic  to  do,  and 
they  fret  and  are  unhappy.  They  don't  know 
how  to  find  the  heroic  things  their  souls  long 
to  do.  And  some  girls  don't  know  what  it  is 
that  makes  them  restless  and  discontented. 
Nobody  tells  them  about  their  birthright. 
So  some  of  them  drift  into  very  great  unhap- 
piness,  and  every  fight  seems  to  go  against 
them,  and  they  grow  sullen  or  careless,  dis- 
pirited or  reckless.  If  any  one  could  find  a 
way  to  reach  the  hearts  of  girls  who  do  not 
know  about  their  birthright,  and  rouse  them 
to  fight  their  way  to  Rheims  for  their  inher- 
itance, it  would  be  one  of  the  most  glorious 
things  ever  undertaken.  That  is  what,  in  my 
Vision,  I  seemed  to  see  you  doing.  The  call 
of  need  is  louder,  stronger,  than  the  call  of 


"A  FORTUNE  WAITING  FOR  YOU"  75 

France  to  Jeanne.  I  don't  suppose  you  can 
hear  it — yet.  But  you  may!  And  if  you 
want  to,  I'll  try  to  take  you  where  you  can 
realize  what  I  mean." 

"  When  can  we  go  ?  "  asked  Isabel. 

"  To-morrow,"  said  Miss  Mary. 


VII 

"SOME  OF  THE  UNCEOWNED" 

"  "TT  AM  going  to  take  you,"  Miss  Mary 
I  said,  next  day,  "to  see  some  of  the 
-*-  girls  I  know  who  are  uncrowned — who 
don't  even  suspect  that  they  have  a  birth- 
right. Perhaps  it  will  occur  to  you  that  you 
can  tell  these  girls  about  their  inheritance. 
Perhaps  you  won't  feel  that  you  can  tell  them 
— it  isn't  always  possible  to  do  things  just 
because  our  hearts  are  full  of  the  desire  to  do 
them ;  there  are  some  persons  we  never  can 
talk  to  ! — but  you'll  each  think  of  other  girls 
you  might  go  to,  and  start  towards  their  cor- 
onation." 

The  first  girl  they  called  on  was  Althea 
Barbour.  Jean  and  Isabel  had  heard  a  great 
deal  about  Althea,  but  they  did  not  know 
that  Miss  Mary  was  acquainted  with  her. 

"  I  did  the  '  Idylls  of  a  King '  paintings  for 
the  Barbours'  library,"  Miss  Mary  explained. 
"  And  I  was  more  or  less  at  the  house  while 
I  was  studying  the  wall  spaces  and  draught- 
ing my  cartoons  ;  and  later,  when  the  can- 
vases were  being  put  in  place.  And  I  used 
76 


"  SOME  OF  THE  UNCROWNED  "    77 

to  see  something  of  this  pathetic  child.  My 
heart  has  always  ached  for  her.  But  I  never 
could  get  close  to  her.  In  order,  I  suppose, 
to  ward  off  pity,  she  has  assumed  an  air  of 
hauteur  which  must  make  life  trebly  hard  for 
her  by  holding  off  much  friendliness  that 
would  otherwise  reach  her.  I  have  asked 
permission  to  take  you  there  to  see  my  paint- 
ings. Once  or  twice  before,  I  have  taken 
friends  there  to  see  them,  and  each  time,  as  I 
talked  about  the  pictures  and  the  stories  they 
illustrate,  I've  been  conscious  of  the  hovering 
nearness  of  that  poor  child  who  cannot  see 
and  who  tries  to  make  listening  serve  her  in- 
stead of  sight.  She  seems  to  love  the  tales 
of  Arthur  and  Guinivere  and  Lancelot  and 
Elaine  and  Merlin  and  Vivien,  and  the  rest. 
She  may  come  down  to-day  when  we  are 
there,  or  she  may  not.  She  is  very  capri- 
cious. No  one  ever  tries  to  induce  her  to  do 
anything.  They  all  seem  to  feel  that  her 
misfortune  entitles  her  to  do  just  as  she 
pleases,  and  that  only.  No  one  seems  to 
realize  that  her  soul,  which  was  made  for 
heroism,  like  all  souls,  is  sick  with  pampering 
and  self-pity." 

"  How  long  has  she  been  blind  ? "  Isabel 
asked. 

"  Since  she  was  twelve.     She  is  about  six-- 


78     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

teen  now,  I  fancy.  Her  blindness  developed 
after  she  had  measles.  I've  heard  that  the 
poor  child  practically  brought  this  affliction 
on  herself  by  her  willfulness  about  using  her 
eyes  when  they  were  weak.  No  one  had 
ever  taught  her  self-government.  She  always 
did  what  she  wanted  at  that  moment  to  do — 
even  if  it  were  sure  to  hurt  her.  Being  an 
only  child  and  a  great  heiress,  she  has  been 
terribly  conspired  against  to  keep  her  from 
the  one  birthright  which  could  make  her 
really  happy.  No  one  seems  to  realize  how 
she's  being  defrauded.  Every  one  who 
comes  athwart  her  path  tries  to  give  her 
commiseration  in  some  form,  either  openly 
or  by  yielding  to  her  wishes,  her  whims. 
And  yet,  having  eyes  that  see  not,  doesn't 
alter  the  fact  that  her  soul,  like  every  soul, 
was  created  that  it  might  learn  courage  and 
know  the  happiness  of  heroism.  I  don't  know 
whether  any  of  us  will  ever  get  an  oppor- 
tunity to  lead  Althea  to  her  Rheims.  But 
we'll  see  what  we  can  do." 

The  Barbour  house  was  very  splendid. 
Miss  Mary  explained  her  errand  to  the  butler 
and  he  conducted  them  at  once  to  the  library. 

"  For  a  long  time,"  she  said  to  the  girls, 
"  I  had  wanted  to  paint  some  pictures  which 
might  illustrate  a  phase  of  the  Idylls  that 


"SOME  OF  THE  UNCROWNED"    79 

other  artists  have  not  chosen  to  paint.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  for  a  home  it  would  be 
highly  appropriate  to  set  forth  some  of  the  so- 
different  types  of  womanhood  that  Tennyson 
describes  in  the  '  Idylls.'  Of  course  he  had 
allegorical  significances  in  his  mind  as  he 
wrote,  but  to  most  persons  the  poems  are 
stories,  and  not  allegories  ;  and  we  love  them 
because  we  read  our  own  hearts  into  the 
tales  they  tell ;  because  the  human  nature 
they  describe  is  the  human  nature  we  know. 
So  I  took  from  them  four  types  of  woman's 
love,  and  made  these  pictures.  Here  is 
Vivien,  the  enchantress,  of  whose  charms,  be- 
cause they  were  only  superficial  charms,  all 
men  tired  in  a  short  time.  She  heard  that 
Merlin,  the  wizard,  knew  a  charm, 

"  'The  which  if  any  wrought  on  any  one 
With  woven  paces  and  with  waving  arms, 
The  man  so  wrought  on  ever  seem'd  to  lie 
Closed  in  the  four  walls  of  a  hollow  tower, 
From  which  was  no  escape  for  evermore ; 
And  none  could  find  that  man  for  evermore, 
Nor  could  he  see  but  him  who  wrought  the  charm 
Coming  and  going,  and  he  lay  as  dead 
And  lost  to  life  and  use  and  name  and  fame.' 

"Vivien  wanted  Merlin  to  teach  her  that 
charm ;  and  when,  yielding  to  her  bewitch- 
ment, he  did  as  she  desired,  she  used  it 
against  him  till  '  he  lay  as  dead,  and  lost  to 


80    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

life  and  use  and  name  and  fame.'  Vivien 
was  the  lowest  type  of  woman  of  which 
Tennyson  could  conceive.  But  I  know — we 
all  know — women  who  are  not  base,  except 
as  selfishness  is  always  debasing,  yet  their 
desire  is  to  close  the  object  of  their  love  '  in 
the  four  walls  of  a  hollow  tower  from  which  is 
no  escape '  and  whence  he  can  see  none  but 
her  who  wrought  the  charm.  I  am  afraid 
that  nearly  all  of  us,  at  times,  have  to  strug- 
gle more  or  less  against  the  temptation  to 
wish  for  that  power  to  '  wall  in '  those  we  are 
wistful  to  keep.  So  I  painted  Vivien,  here, 
weaving  her  paces  and  waving  her  arms  to 
make  Merlin  prisoner  in  the  hollow  oak. 

"  Then,  here  is  Enid  who,  because  she  so 
greatly  loved,  realized  that  the  love  her  hus- 
band, Geraint,  was  giving  her,  was  not  up- 
lifting him.  Geraint,  a  mighty  man  of  valor, 
a  great  prince,  became  so  absorbed  in  his  de- 
votion to  his  lovely  young  wife,  Enid,  that  he 
forgot  every  other  obligation.  His  might, 
his  valour,  were  becoming  as  nothing  to  him. 
He  took  Enid  away  from  the  court  of  King 
Arthur  and  Queen  Guinivere,  lest  her  friend- 
ship with  the  Queen — who  loved  Lancelot — 
move  Enid  to  look  lightly  on  such  things ; 
and  kept  her,  not  quite  in  '  a  hollow  tower,' 
but  in  a  remote  castle  where  she  could  see 


11  SOME  OF  THE  UNCROWNED"    81 

none  but  him,  and  where  he  could  spend  his 
nights  and  days  adoring  her.  But  Enid 
knew  that  such  love  cannot  make  a  man 
happy,  nor  truly  crown  a  woman.  She 
knew  that  love  is  not  an  end,  but  a  means 
towards  an  end  ;  that  it  is  given  us  to  help  us 
live  more  perfectly,  and  aspire  more  yearn- 
ingly towards  heaven.  She  knew  that  the 
more  we  love,  the  more  our  lives,  in  all  their 
obligations,  ought  to  bear  glorious  witness  to 
the  power  of  our  love.  Emerson  said,  '  our 
friends  are  those  who  make  us  do  what  we 
can.'  And  I  think  our  beloved  are  those  who 
make  us  do  what  we  couldn't  do  except  for 
them.  Enid  feared  that  she  was  'no  true 
wife '  because  the  love  she  inspired  in  her 
husband  did  not  make  him  do  what  he  could. 
So  far  from  being  a  greater  prince  because  of 
his  love,  he  was  not  even  so  good  a  prince  as 
he  had  been  before.  And  Enid  was  unhappy 
— as  every  one  of  us  ought  to  be  when  we 
realize  that  the  love  we  feel  and  the  love  we 
inspire  is  not  fruitful  of  brave  deeds.  Only 
the  brave  are  happy.  If  we  truly  love  any 
one,  we  want  that  one  to  be  happy — and 
there  is  no  happiness  possible  apart  from  a 
sense  of  using  the  best  that  is  in  us,  and  bet- 
tering it  by  usage." 

There  was  a  slight  rustle  as  of  some  one 


82     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

moving,  in  the  adjoining  room.  Miss  Mary 
signed  to  the  girls  to  pay  no  heed  to  it,  and 
went  on  with  her  talk  about  the  pictures,  and 
about  Jeanne.  Somehow,  the  themes  inter- 
blended  quite  wonderfully,  and  the  girls  found 
themselves  drawn  into  an  eager  discussion  of 
love  and  valour  and  birthrights  and  the 
debt-universal.  They  almost  forgot  about 
Althea  Barbour — forgot  that  she  was  listen- 
ing. But  when  Miss  Mary  said  that  they 
must  not  impose  on  Mrs.  Barbour's  courtesy 
by  tarrying  longer  in  her  library,  and  they 
all  moved  towards  the  door,  the  girls  sud- 
denly remembered  that  they  had  come  to 
see  Althea ;  and  they  were  going  without  see- 
ing her. 

They  could  ask  no  questions  until  they 
were  outside  ;  but  they  felt  quite  defeated  as 
they  passed  out — as  if  they  had  gone  to 
Vaucouleurs  and  come  away  without  facing 
Beaudricourt. 

Miss  Mary,  however,  did  not  appear  down- 
cast. 

"  Wait ! "  she  urged.  "  And  try  to  think 
what  you  would  have  done  had  you  been  in 
Althea's  place ;  try  to  think  what  you  would 
probably  do  when  you  got  to  reflecting  on 
all  you'd  heard.  If  your  soul  were  sick  of 
pampering,  and  of  self-pity,  and  you  wanted 


"SOME  OF  THE  UNCROWNED"    83 

to  hear  more  about  courage,  about  your  birth- 
right and  your  debt,  you'd  manage  to  hear — 
wouldn't  you  ?     Althea  will  manage  1" 

She  did.  Twenty-four  hours  had  not 
elapsed  before  Miss  Mary  received  a  note 
from  Mrs.  Barbour  who  said  that  her  daugh- 
ter had  "chanced  to  overhear  parts  of  the 
conversation  between  you  and  two  young 
ladies  who  accompanied  you  to  see  the  pic- 
tures. She  was  much  interested,  and  was 
sorry  not  to  have  been  able  to  participate ; 
but  you  know  her  affliction  makes  her  shy. 
However,  I  have  promised  her  that  I  would 
ask  you  if  you  and  the  young  ladies  would 
not  come  and  take  tea  with  her  on  Friday 
afternoon.     I  do  hope  you  can  come." 

"  Now,"  reminded  Miss  Mary  when  the 
girls  had  agreed  to  go,  "Jeanne  d'Arc  had 
great  valour ;  but  she  had  also  great  meas- 
ure of  something  else  without  which  her  val- 
our could  not  have  saved  France — she  had 
astounding  discretion,  and  profound  strategy 
of  warfare.  She  said  her  Voices  counselled 
her  in  all  things.  And  her  wisdom  was  very 
great.  Sometimes  the  seasoned  generals  un- 
der her  thought  they  knew  more  about  ways 
to  fight  than  she  could  possibly  know  ;  but 
whenever  they  opposed  their  way  to  hers, 
they  invariably  found  that  she  was  right  and 


84    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

they  were  wrong.  The  Voices  that  speak  to 
the  heart — especially  to  the  pure  heart,  like 
Jeanne's — are  likely  to  be  good  guides.  I 
want  you  girls  to  listen  to  the  Voices  in  your 
hearts,  and  see  if  they  don't  tell  you  how  you 
may  best  help  Althea — whether  by  telling 
her  you  have  come  to  take  her  to  Rheims,  or 
by  telling  her  of  the  others  you  hope  to  start 
after  their  crowns. 

"  Something  inside — in  your  hearts — will 
tell  you  what  to  do.  You  see,  we  don't 
know  whether  Althea  realizes  that  she  is  un- 
crowned. In  the  meantime,  you  will  have 
met  one  or  two  others  who  may,  perhaps, 
help  you  to  interest  Althea.  This  afternoon 
I'm  going  to  take  you  to  see  a  girl  who  has 
just  learned  about  her  birthright — not  all 
about  it,  but  just  that  she  has  one  and  that 
she  wants  to  wear  it.  She's  only  fifteen,  and 
about  two  weeks  ago  she  was  arrested  for 
throwing  a  butcher-knife  at  her  father.  She 
missed  him  by  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch. 
But  for  fear  she'd  come  closer  next  time, 
he  had  her  arrested.  She's  quite  a  pretty 
girl,  with  flaxen  hair  and  pink  cheeks  and 
deep-blue  eyes.  But  when  the  officer  took 
her  to  the  Juvenile  Detention  Home  where 
young  persons  under  eighteen  are  kept 
pending  their  hearings  in  court,  she  cursed 


"SOME  OF  THE  UNCROWNED"    85 

so  horribly  and  used  such  frightful  lan- 
guage, and  showed  such  violence  to  every- 
body, that  they  were  afraid  to  keep  her — 
used  as  they  are  to  some  very  naughty  girls 
and  boys.  So  she  had  to  be  taken  to  one  of 
the  regular  jails  for  grown-up  offenders,  and 
locked  in  a  cell  by  herself.  Everybody  was 
afraid  of  her.  Nobody  could  make  any  im- 
pression on  her. 

"  Well,  at  last  she  was  brought  into  court 
— I  was  there  when  she  came — before  the 
dear  little  '  lady  judge '  as  the  delinquent 
girls  she  hears  call  her.  The  officer  who 
made  the  arrest  told  what  a  terrible  girl 
Sophie  was ;  and  Sophie's  father  told  what  a 
terrible  girl  she  was ;  and  Sophie  bawled 
curses  at  them,  and  yelled  defiance,  and 
wouldn't  stand  up  before  the  judge,  and 
acted — altogether — like  an  infuriated  young 
beast. 

"  The  judge  listened  to  the  officer,  and  to 
Sophie's  father,  and  then  she  made  them  both 
go  to  the  farthest  corner  of  that  little  room 
where  she  hears  each  girl's  case  privately, 
and  began  to  talk  to  Sophie — speaking  very 
low,  and  very  pleadingly.  At  first  Sophie 
wouldn't  answer  ;  then  she  began  to  bawl  out 
her  defiant  replies.  The  soft,  sweet  voice 
never  changed  its  tone — it  was  very,  very 


86    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

tender,  but  even  Sophie  could  feel  the^ 
strength  behind  its  tenderness.  Presently 
Sophie  began  to  sob  and  cry.  She  had  no 
handkerchief,  and  the  judge  unfolded  a  fresh, 
sweet  one  and  put  it  into  Sophie's  dirty  hand. 
She  laid  an  arm  about  Sophie's  shaking 
shoulders — and  Sophie  didn't  draw  away. 

"  They  had  a  long  talk,  and  Sophie  talked 
as  low  as  the  judge.  She  admitted  that  she 
had  thrown  the  knife,  hoping  to  kill.  She 
admitted  that  she  had  been  so  violent  that 
she  had  to  be  sent  away  from  the  Detention 
Home  and  locked  in  a  cell.  Asked  why  she 
did  such  dreadful  things,  she  said  she  had  a 
'  terrible  temper.'  The  judge  asked  her  how 
she  came  to  let  her  temper  ruin  her  life  that 
way — and  Sophie  told  ! 

"  Her  mother  had  died  so  long  ago  that 
Sophie  couldn't  remember  anything  about 
her.  Sophie's  father  was  '  always  drunk,' 
she  said.  There  were  twin  boys  a  year 
younger  than  Sophie,  and  another  boy  a 
year  younger  than  they.  Sophie  had  '  kept 
house  '  for  her  pa  and  the  three  brothers  since 
she  was  six.  They  lived  in  two  rooms.  Her 
father  was  drunk  so  much  of  the  time  that 
it  seemed  to  Sophie  he  was  never  sober. 
Sometimes  he  drove  the  children  out  of  the 
house  and  kept  them  out  all  night.     Often 


"SOME  OF  THE  UNCROWNED"    87 

he  beat  them.  They  never  had  enough  to 
eat,  and  their  clothing  was  assembled  from 
all  kinds  of  places  except  shops.  The  young- 
sters brought  themselves  up,  and  they  made 
a  pretty  poor  job  of  it.  The  boys,  who  were 
'  in  with '  one  of  the  worst  gangs  of  their 
very  bad  neighbourhood,  tormented  Sophie 
with  the  same  zest  they  showed  in  torturing 
cats  or  '  baiting '  Jews  or  breaking  up  the 
Mission  of  the  pale  young  Rector  who 
wanted  to  '  uplift '  them.  That  was  the 
atmosphere  in  which  Sophie  grew  ;  except 
for  her  very  intermittent  and  half-hearted 
schooling,  it  was  the  only  atmosphere  she 
knew. 

"  Bit  by  bit  this  all  came  out,  as  Sophie 
sobbed  her  answers  to  the  judge's  questions. 

And  then !     How  I  wish  you  could  have 

been  there  to  see  and  hear.  After  a  long 
talk,  Sophie  said  she  could  realize  that  she 
was  getting  nothing  but  unhappiness  out  of 
life  and  that  she  could  not  hope  to  get  any- 
thing else  until  she  had  learned  how  to  govern 
her  temper  and  to  make  herself  seek  and  do 
the  right  things.  And  she  agreed  to  go 
back  to  the  Detention  Home  and  ask  the 
superintendent  to  forgive  her  and  try  her 
again  and  give  her  a  chance  to  show  that 
she  meant  to  '  make  good.' 


88    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

"The  superintendent  welcomed  Sophie 
and  told  her  never  to  doubt  that  she'd  make 
good.  And  when  I  asked,  this  morning, 
how  Sophie  was  getting  on,  the  superintend- 
ent's voice  broke,  with  the  strength  of  her 
feeling,  as  she  told  me  of  the  brave  big  fight 
Sophie's  making.  '  She  doesn't  win  every 
battle,  by  any  means,'  the  superintendent 
said.  '  But  when  she  loses,  she  flings  her- 
self into  my  arms  and  sobs  out  her  contrition 
and  her  fresh  resolve.  And  I  count  that  a 
triumph  for  Sophie,  as  great  as  Waterloo 
was  for  Wellington.' 

"  I  told  the  superintendent  about  our  idea, 
and  how  we  want  to  pass  it  on  to  others 
whom  it  may  help  as  much  as  it  has  helped 
us.  And  she  said  we  might  go  to  see  Sophie 
— though  we  couldn't  hope  to  rouse  in  her 
much  interest  in  Jeanne  d'Arc.  I  said  we 
didn't  expect  to  talk  to  Sophie  about  going 
to  Rheims " 

The  girls  smiled. 

" but  that  I  thought  she  might  like  to 

know  that  she's  an  heiress — that  she  has  '  a 
fortune '  waiting  for  her  to  claim  it.  And  do 
you  know,  girls,  I've  been  kind  of  wishful 
that  we  had  a  little  '  Book  of  Heirs.'  I  don't 
know  what  it  should  be  like,  except  that  I'd 
wish  it  to  be  so  phrased  that  even  poor  little 


"SOME  OF  THE  UNCROWNED"    89 

Sophie    could    comprehend    that    it   meant 
her." 

"  Oh,  Miss  Mary  !  "  Jean  cried,  eagerly. 
"  Did  you  happen  to  see  that  last  will  and 
testament  of  the  man  who  died  recently  in 
the  poorhouse  at  Dunning?" 

"  No,  dear,  I  didn't.  Tell  us  about  it." 
"  Well,  I  can't  remember  it  all,  and  I'm 
afraid  I  can't  repeat  any  of  it  in  the  beautiful 
language  he  used ;  but  it  was  that  he  be- 
queathed to  good  fathers  and  mothers,  in 
trust  for  their  children,  all  quaint  pet  names 
and  pretty  words  of  praise.  And  to  children 
he  gave  the  right  to  play  in  the  flowering  fields 
and  on  the  yellow  shores  of  creeks.  He  gave 
them  the  stars  and  the  moon,  too,  and 
directed  that  each  child  should  choose  a 
particular  star  for  his  very  own.  And  he 
bequeathed  all  sorts  of  sports  to  boys,  and 
left  them  lots  of  lovely  things,  including  pic- 
tures in  the  fire  at  night.  He  left  gifts  to 
lovers,  too — and  to  young  men.  And  the 
last  item  was  what  he  gave  to  those  who  are 
no  longer  children  or  youths  or  lovers ;  he 
gave  them  memory,  and  the  poets,  and — I 
remember  the  exact  words  of  the  last  sen- 
tence— he  left  them,  too,  '  the  knowledge 
what  a  rare,  rare  world  it  is.'  I  cut  the  will 
out  of  the  paper.     And  the  other  evening  a 


90    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

friend  of  Dad's  who  was  calling  at  our  house 
said  that  this  pauper's  will  left  greater  treas- 
ure to  mankind  than  Morgan's  or  Altman's 
or  any  will  he'd  ever  read.  '  But  not  all  his 
heirs,'  this  gentleman  said,  '  will  learn  of 
their  inheritance ;  thousands  of  them  will 
die  poor  in  spirit  though  perhaps  rich  in 
purse,  never  knowing  "  what  a  rare,  rare 
world  it  is"!'" 

"  Why,  Jean  !  "  Miss  Mary  cried.  "  Thank 
you  '  the  most  that  ever  was ' !  I  wouldn't 
have  missed  that  for  anything.  Perhaps  we 
can  get  the  whole  text  of  that  wonderful  will, 
and  add  some  things  to  it,  and  make  a  '  Book 
of  Heirs.'     Now  let  us  go  and  see  Sophie." 


VIII 
THE  FIKST  " GALLANT  COMPANY" 

IT  was  the  first  time  Jean  or  Isabel  had 
ever  called  on  any  one  behind  bars. 
Every  effort  was  made,  at  the  Home,  to 
keep  the  children  from  thinking  about  the 
bars  ;  but  the  bars  were  there — they  had  to 
be,  for  the  children's  protection.  Society 
seeks  its  own  protection  when  it  puts  certain 
adult  offenders  behind  bars ;  but  when  it 
locks  up  unfortunate  children,  the  safety  of 
the  children  is  the  main  consideration — 
there  are  so  many  forces  in  the  world  that 
"  offend  these  little  ones." 

Once  past  the  down-stairs  gratings,  how- 
ever, there  was  not  a  great  deal  to  remind 
one  of  a  place  of  detention.  Miss  Mary  and 
the  girls  were  taken  up  to  the  superin- 
tendent's private  parlour ;  and  into  that 
pretty  homelike  room  Sophie  was  brought 
to  meet  them.  She  wore  a  white  duck 
"  middy  blouse "  with  dark  red  tie  and 
trimmings  on  the  sailor  collar,  and  a  white 
duck  skirt ;  and  her  flaxen  hair,  in  two  tight 
braids,  looped  up,  was  tied  with  bright  pink 
91 


92    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

ribbons — scarcely  pinker,  though,  than  So- 
phie's cheeks.  She  clung  close  to  the 
superintendent,  her  arm  about  that  fine,  big- 
sisterly  young  woman's  waist.  It  seemed 
incredible  that  this  little  girl  had  terrorized 
the  police ! 

"  Miss  Binford  and  these  young  ladies, 
Sophie,"  the  superintendent  said  after  her 
introductions  had  been  made,  "  know  what  a 
great,  big,  splendid  fight  you  are  making, 
and  how  proud  of  you  I  am ;  and  they 
wanted  to  meet  you.  They  feel  this  way, 
Sophie  ;  they  know  you've  got  a  lot  of  hard 
things  to  do,  and  they  thought  perhaps  they 
might  be  able  to  help  you,  some,  by  being 
friends  with  you.  And  they  have  their  own 
hard  things  to  do ;  and  sometimes,  when 
they  feel  they  are  not  doing  as  well  as  they 
ought  to,  it  will  be  a  big  help  to  them  to 
remember  you  and  what  an  awfully  plucky 
fight  you  are  making.  Not  many  girls  have 
such  hard  things  to  do  as  you  are  doing. 
And  you  know  how  I've  been  telling  you 
that  your  making  good  and  winning  out  is 
going  to  be  more  real  help  to  other  girls 
than  almost  anything  else  could  possibly  be. 
Now,  these  two  girls  each  have  something 
hard  to  do,  to  bear,  to  overcome.  And  how 
do   you   suppose   they're   getting  the  most 


THE  "  GALLANT  COMPANY"      93 

help  in  doing  it  ?  By  trying  to  get  all  the 
brave  girls  together,  so  they  can  encourage 
one  another.  And  I  believe  you're  the  very 
first  girl  they've  asked  to  belong.  They 
want  you  to  be  a  kind  of  captain,  here,  and 
pick  out  some  of  the  other  girls  you  think 
are  making  a  good  fight,  or  ought  to  make 
one.  And  we'll  have  a  company,  or  society, 
or  whatever  you  decide  to  call  it.  Do  you 
think  you'd  like  that  ?  " 

"  Maybe  I  would — I  don't  know,"  Sophie 
answered.  But  when  she  had  heard  more 
about  it,  from  Jean  and  Isabel,  she  decided 
that  she  would  like  it  very  much  indeed, 
although  she  wasn't  sure  that  she  "  would 
know  how  to  do." 

11  We  don't,  either ! "  Jean  declared.  "  We 
know  what  we'd  like  to  do,  but  we  don't 
know  how  we  are  going  to  do  it.  We're 
trying  to  find  out.  You  may  learn  a  good 
way  before  we  do.  And  if  you  do,  you'll 
tell  us  ;  won't  you  ?  " 

"  Sure  I  will,"  Sophie  said. 

They  told  her  about  Althea,  and  how  they 
were  going  to  try  to  get  her  started. 

"  There  are  a  good  many  ways  that  parents 
can  make  things  hard  for  their  children, 
Sophie,"  the  superintendent  said.  "  They 
can  drink,  and  abuse  them  and  starve  them 


94     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

and  lock  them  out  and  not  give  them  clothes 
or  teach  them  anything.  Or  they  can  pet 
them  and  spoil  them  and  let  them  have  their 
own  way  in  everything,  and  make  them  just 
as  unhappy  as  the  beaten  and  abused  chil- 
dren. But  the  children  who  are  kicked  and 
cuffed  are  really  better  off  than  the  ones  who 
are  coddled  and  made  selfish,  silly  fools  of. 
For  it  often  happens  that  hard  treatment 
makes  us  strong  to  endure,  brings  out  the 
good,  fighting  stuff  in  us  ;  but  the  other  ex- 
treme makes  weak,  wishy-washy,  no-account, 
selfish  creatures  that  are  no  good  to  them- 
selves or  anybody.  If  Althea  Barbour  man- 
ages to  be  brave  and  helpful,  she'll  have  to 
make  every  bit  as  big  a  fight  as  you're  going 
to  make.  And  it's  going  to  be  harder  for 
her — because  she's  never  been  taught  to 
struggle.  You  have  1  You're  a  fighter 
from  '  way  back.'  The  kind  of  fighting 
you've  been  doing  is  a  bad  kind.  But  just 
as  soon  as  you  get  all  that  fighting  energy 
of  yours  into  a  good  fight,  you're  going  to 
amount  to  something,  I  can  tell  you." 

Sophie  and  the  superintendent  started  the 
first  "  gallant  company "  of  Jean's  army. 
They  had  plenty  of  material  to  recruit  from, 
there  in  the  Juvenile  Home.     The  superin- 


THE  "  GALLANT  COMPANY"      95 

tendent  said  she  had  never  seen  more  eager 
enlistment,  nor  more  immediate  results.  And 
when  the  company  was  enrolled,  and  of- 
ficered, Miss  Mary  went  over,  accompanied 
by  Jean  and  Isabel  and  Adelaide,  and  gave  a 
talk  on  Jeanne  d'Arc.  She  took  a  lot  of 
photographs  and  post-cards  and  small  copies 
of  the  du  Monvel  pictures,  and  a  copy  of 
Bastien  Lepage's  wonderful  canvas,  "  Jeanne 
listening  to  the  Voices ; "  and  showed  the 
pictures  on  a  sheet,  by  means  of  a  photo- 
lantern  ;  and  found  that  the  story  was  loved 
as  a  story,  and  also  that  it  was  appreciated  as 
a  symbol. 

Some  of  the  girls  stayed  in  the  Home  only 
a  few  days  ;  others  were  there  for  weeks ;  but 
each  one  pledged,  as  she  left,  to  remain  a 
member  of  the  "  gallant  company  "  and  to  do 
all  she  could  to  recruit  other  companies. 

Progress  was  more  rapid  there  than  any- 
where else.     The  conditions  favoured  it. 

"The  girls  here,"  their  superintendent  said, 
"  have  been  taken  out  of  their  ordinary 
courses  of  life,  and  brought  here  because  they 
must  make  a  decided  change.  Most  of  them 
learn  to  realize  what  was  wrong  in  their 
former  behaviour,  and  to  know  the  better 
way.  The  great  pity  of  nearly  all  of  their 
cases,  though,  is  that  their  parents  haven't 


96    EVERYBODY S  BIRTHRIGHT 

learned  anything !  These  poor  little  girls 
must  either  be  separated  from  their  families 
who  neglected  or  abused  them,  or  else  they 
must  go  back  to  make  their  struggle,  single- 
handed,  against  the  same  old  conditions  of 
neglect  or  abuse  which  caused  them  to  come 
here*  Either  way  is  hard.  But  I  think  the 
sense  of  belonging  to  a  '  gallant  company ' 
will  help  tremendously.  We  must  have 
frequent  rallies.  We  must  help  the  girls  think 
up  ways  of  keeping  up  the  spirit  of  this  thing. 
They'll  be  able  to  endure  ten  times  as  much, 
and  fight  sturdily  on,  if  they  can  feel  that 
they're  marching  in  brave  company  and 
keeping  the  others  inspired." 

Althea  heard  about  Sophie,  and,  through 
Sophie's  story,  about  the  gallant  company. 
When  the  question  of  Sophie's  future  was 
raised,  it  was  Althea's  suggestion  that  she 
would  pay  for  a  year's  schooling  for  Sophie 
in  any  school  that  the  judge  might  choose. 
And  this  offer  was  gratefully  accepted,  be- 
cause the  only  schools  to  which  Sophie  could 
be  sent  by  the  court  were  schools  that  did 
not  seem  well  equipped  to  give  her  the  kind 
of  training  she  needed.  The  girls  sent  to 
correctional  and  training  schools  at  public  ex- 
pense are   nearly  all   girls  who   have  been 


THE  "  GALLANT  COMPANY"     97 

morally  delinquent.  And  it  seemed  to  those 
who  cared  so  much  about  Sophie's  brave 
fight  that  she  ought  not  to  be  asked  to  make 
it  in  association  with  girls  who  were  not  able 
easily  to  forget  things  which  they  had  learned 
and  which  Sophie  had  not. 

"  There  are  no  '  ungovernable '  tempers," 
said  the  judge,  "  but  there  are  many,  many 
ungoverned  tempers.  Sophie's  has  been  ter- 
ribly aggravated,  and  no  one  has  ever  helped 
her  to  control  it.  We  want  a  school  for  her 
where  the  principal  study  is  self-discipline, 
and  the  next-most-important  study  is  how  to 
earn  a  living  at  some  kind  of  work  in  which 
she  can  be  interested  and  happy.  These  are 
the  great  blessings :  self-government — the 
will  and  the  strength  to  do  what  is  right — 
and  work  that  we  can  grow  in,  and  feel  our- 
selves useful  to  the  world.  I  want  Sophie  to 
have  those  blessings.  I  want  every  girl  to 
have  them  I " 


IX 
THOSE  WHO  LINGER  AT  CHINON 

ALTHEA  was  drawn  to  the  judge  as 
instinctively  as  were  the  girls  who 
went  before  her.  She  lost  her 
hauteur,  under  the  spell  of  that  sweet  voice, 
as  Sophie  had  lost  her  fury,  and  as  other 
girls  had  lost  their  fear  or  their  resentment  or 
their  bravado.  She  could  not  hear  enough 
of  the  stories  of  those  other  girls,  and  of 
their  needs.  Not  once  did  Althea  admit, 
though — even  to  the  judge — her  own  needs. 

"  Never  mind,"  Miss  Mary  counselled  Jean. 
"  Let  her  get  what  help  she  can  in  her  own 
way.  If  she  gets  courage  by  forgetting  her 
sorrow  and  remembering  others,  help  her  to 
do  it.  It  doesn't  matter  whether  she  joins  a 
gallant  company  or  not,  if  the  sound  of  our 
marching  feet  cheers  and  fortifies  her  and 
moves  her  to  express  her  courage  in  some 
way." 

"  She's  a  good  deal  like  the  Dauphin ; 
isn't  she  ?  "  Jean  remarked. 

"  Yes  ;  like  him,  she's  persuaded  by  her 
courtiers  that  the  only  thing  for  her  to  do  is 
98 


THOSE  WHO  LINGER  99 

to  stay  at  Chinon  ;  to  forget  the  enemy  and 
the  crown — neither  to  fight  nor  to  triumph  ; 
neither  to  seek  her  birthright  nor  to  pay  her 
debt." 

Jean  and  Miss  Mary  were  in  the  library  of 
Jean's  home,  side  by  side  on  the  big,  brown 
davenport  which  was  to  them,  they  said,  like 
Jeanne  d' Arc's  fairy  tree  at  Domremy  ;  they 
could  see  their  Vision  here  more  wonderfully 
than  elsewhere  because  here  they  had  first 
seen  it. 

"  Is  Chinon  very  beautiful  ?  "  Jean  asked. 

"Very,  very  beautiful.  One  can  under- 
stand how  a  dauphin  might  be  persuaded  to 
believe  himself  better  off  in  that  magnificent 
old  castle,  lc/oking  down  that  glorious  valley 
of  the  Vienne,  with  his  relatives  and  friends 
around  him,  than  he  could  be  by  going  to 
war  against  the  English  and  Burgundians. 
To  go  after  that  crown  at  Rheims  meant  to 
fight  his  way  against  overwhelming  odds  ;  to 
leave  his  family  behind — perhaps  never  to 
see  them  more  ;  to  risk  death ;  to  endure 
hardship.  If  he  stayed  at  Chinon,  he  might 
live  and  die  unmolested.  France  would  be 
lost.  But  Charles  of  Valois  would  be  safe 
and  comfortable." 

"  Did  you — ever  go  there — to  Chinon— 
more  than — once  ?  "  Jean  whispered. 


ioo    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

"  No." 

Jean  had  been  thinking  a  great  deal,  even 
in  all  her  absorption  in  the  great  project,  of 
the  story  Miss  Mary  had  told  her ;  of  those 
golden  days  when  all  the  beauty  and  the 
romance  and  the  splendid  tradition  of  France 
seemed  to  have  been  created  to  be  a  fitting 
background  and  atmosphere  for  the  most 
perfect  young  love.  She  wondered  how  the 
man  Miss  Mary  loved  could  go  so  far  away 
that  her  love  couldn't  reach  him.  She  won- 
dered if  he  knew  that  Miss  Mary  had  never 
stopped  loving  him.  She  wondered  many 
things.  But  she  did  not  like  to  ask  any 
question  that  might  make  Miss  Mary  un- 
happy. 

"  Dad  says,"  Jean  went  on,  "  that  if  noth- 
ing happens  to  prevent  he  will  take  Mother 
and  me  to  France  in  July  ;  and  we'll  motor  ; 
and  if  I  want  to,  we'll  go  over  the  Jeanne 
d'Arc  country.  I  think  he's  getting  pretty 
interested  in  her  himself.  We  have  some  fine 
talks  about  her." 

"  Won't  that  be  a  treat  to  you  ?  "  Miss  Mary 
cried.  "  And  how  you  will  glory  in  it  1  I  do 
hope  nothing  will  prevent  it !  I  feel  that  it 
will  be  just  the  thing  you  need  most  of  all  to 
give  you  that  final  touch  of  inspiration,  of 
confidence,  that  will  make  you  assume  real 


THOSE  WHO  LINGER  101 

generalship.  This  year  you  are  just  feeling 
your  way,  slowly — spying  out  the  land — see- 
ing what's  to  be  done.  Almost  every  day 
you  are  becoming  acquainted  with  new  needs, 
with  new  conditions  of  life  where  people  need 
to  remember  their  birthright  and  their  debt. 
If,  after  six  months  or  so  of  learning  this,  you 
can  go  over  to  Domremy,  and  Vaucouleurs, 
and  Chinon  and  Poitiers  and  Blois,  and 
Tours,  and  Orleans,  and  Rheims,  and  on — to 
Compiegne  and  to  Rouen — I  believe  you'll 
easily  get  so  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  The 
Maid  that  you'll  come  back  full  of  power  to 
lead  girls  in  loving  to  do  the  brave  thing. 
These  first  months  I'm  trying  to  counsel 
you  all  I  can.  Perhaps — who  knows  ? — I'm 
speaking  for  your  Margaret.  Perhaps  my 
Jean  who  never  came  out  of  the  world  of 
visions  and  dreams  is  at  my  other  ear,  tell- 
ing me  some  things  to  say  to  you.  But  by 
and  by  you  will  be  better  able  to  hear  them 
than  I  am — because  your  heart  is  younger 
and  purer  and  more  unafraid.  Oh,  Jean  !  I 
want  you  to  have  that  journey  ! " 

"  I  wish  you  could  go  !  "  Jean  whispered, 
drawing  Miss  Mary  closer  to  her  with  a 
"  mothering  "  caress. 

"  Darling,  I  couldn't,"  Miss  Mary  mur- 
mured.    "  And  it  is  better  so.     If  I  went,  you 


102     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

might  feel  my  impressions — even  my  recol- 
lections. It  is  much  better  that  you  should 
go  with  some  one  to  whom  you  will  en- 
deavour to  explain  what  each  place  means  to 
you — its  relation  to  Jeanne  and  history,  and 
its  symbolism  in  the  lives  of  us  all.  It  is  best 
of  all  that  you  should  go  with  your  parents  ; 
for  you  to  have  that  close  comradeship  with 
them  which  people  can  have  so  much  more 
easily  in  travel  than  at  home,  where  each  has 
his  separate  and  separating  interests.  If  you 
begin  such  a  comradeship  over  there,  where 
you  three  are  together  all  day  and  every  day,? 
enjoying  the  same  things,  I'm  sure  you'll  have 
a  stronger  bond  to  hold  you  together  when  you 
come  home.  And  you  know  how  great  a 
part  of  the  Vision  it  is  that  parents  and  chil- 
dren shall  be  brought  closer  together  than 
they  are  now  ;  that  they  shall  feel  a  comrade- 
ship most  of  them  don't  feel  now.  We  want 
parents  to  realize  the  great  need  of  teaching 
their  children  to  be  brave  ;  to  meet  life  heroic- 
ally, to  struggle,  not  doggedly,  but  splen- 
didly ;  to  know  their  birthright,  and  to  get 
it ;  to  acknowledge  their  debt,  and  to  pay  it. 
And  we  want  the  children  to  understand  what 
the  parents  are  trying  to  help  them  to,  and  to 
appreciate  it,  and  to  feel  all  the  thrills  of 
making  a  brave  adventure  to  win  a  crown  of 


THOSE  WHO  LINGER  103 

great  honour.  .  .  .  The  thing  that  Jeanne 
had  to  do  took  her  away  from  her  home,  her 
parents.  We  hope  that  the  thing  you  are  to 
do  will  make  your  home  dearer  to  you  than 
it  ever  could  have  been  otherwise,  and  make 
you  and  your  parents  comrades  of  the  same 
cause.  It's  heart-breaking  to  have  to  go  on  a 
mission,  a  crusade,  however  glorious,  and 
leave  your  nearest  and  dearest  behind.  There 
is  too  much  separation  in  this  world  now. 
There  has  always  been  too  much  of  it !  We 
want  to  help  people  be  brave  and  strong  to- 
gether." 

Miss  Mary's  parents  were  both  dead.  She 
had  two  brothers,  but  they  were  married,  and 
their  lives  were  full  of  their  own  interests. 
They  loved  and  deeply  admired  Miss  Mary ; 
but  their  lives  were  complete  without  her, 
and  she  knew  it  even  better  than  they  did. 
She  loved  them  so  tenderly  that  she  gave 
them  of  herself  whenever  she  could,  but  too 
unselfishly  to  ask  of  them  anything  that  might 
take  them  from  the  other  allegiances  to  which 
they  owed  themselves  first  and  chiefly.  It 
was  her  battle  in  life  to  be  brave  alone ;  to 
touch  other  lives  where  she  could,  not  to 
draw  them  close  to  hers,  except  for  a  while, 
but  to  strengthen  their  natural  ties.  She  was 
happy  with  Jean,  but  she  never  lost  sight  of 


104    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

the  fact  that  when  she  had  done  her  best  by 
Jean,  Jean  would  have  no  real  need  of  her, 
and  would  be  intent  upon  the  fullest  possible 
realization  of  her  relationship  to  her  parents 
and  to  her  work  in  the  world. 

Jean  had  tried  not  to  say  much,  latterly, 
about  the  ache  in  her  own  lonely  heart ;  but 
she  knew  that  Miss  Mary  understood  it  was 
still  there.  And  so  she,  though  Miss  Mary 
did  not  once  mention  after  that  first  time  her 
sense  of  loneliness  in  the  great,  busy  world, 
knew  that  the  ache  for  "  what  might  have 
been  "  grew  stronger  and  not  less  strong  as 
time  went  by. 

11  Nothing  in  all  the  world  can  bring  my 
Margaret  back  to  me,"  Jean  reflected  ago- 
nizingly. "  But  somewhere  in  the  world — 
not  gone  beyond  recall,  only  just  separated 
from  her  perhaps  by  a  misunderstanding — is 
the  man  Miss  Mary  loved  so  much.  I  wish 
I  knew  how  to  find  him  1 " 

She  thought  about  this  a  good  deal,  partly 
because  she  loved  Miss  Mary  so  dearly,  and 
partly  because  she  was  at  an  age  when  noth- 
ing in  the  world  seems  quite  so  real  or  so  im- 
portant as  Romance.  Most  of  us  appear  to 
outgrow  that  age — some  of  us  sooner  and 
some  of  us  later.  But  I  often  wonder  what 
would  happen  if  to  the  men  and  women  most 


THOSE  WHO  LINGER  105 

preoccupied  with  affairs  great  or  small  could 
come  an  opportunity  of  a  real  romance.  I 
wonder  if,  in  many  of  them,  it  would  be  found 
that  the  heart  of  youth  had  withered  away 
and  its  longings  could  not  be  revived.  I 
wonder  if,  in  many  of  them,  the  "  substantial 
realities,"  the  rewards  of  toil,  the  zest  of 
labour,  the  reflexive  warmth  of  kindly  deeds, 
have  entirely  supplanted  youth's  longing  for 
dreams  and  sighs  and  kisses  and  ecstasy — 
for  the  magic  of  life,  and  for  its  dear  illusions  ; 
its  dancing  will-o'-the-wisp  lights,  and  its 
song  of  the  "  time-devouring  nightingale." 
I  often  wonder  how  much  nearer  we  come  to 
rendering  the  spirit  of  the  world's  unending 
epic — Life — when  we  translate  it  literally,  in 
terms  of  the  actualities,  than  when  we  inter- 
pret it  liberally,  in  the  terms  of  hearts'  desires. 
Jean,  however,  had  no  such  wonder.  To 
her  it  was  all  very  simple  :  Life  is  Love,  and 
the  things  Love  makes  us  do.  And  all  the 
while  she  was  thinking  of  recruiting  gallant 
companies  and  helping  straggling  souls  into 
the  column  marching  to  Rheims  to  get  their 
crowns,  she  was  intensely  conscious  of  two 
things :  of  her  own  loneliness,  her  longing 
for  Margaret ;  and  of  her  eagerness  to  see 
Miss  Mary's  loneliness  and  longing  dispelled 
by  the  return  of  that  lover  who  had  gone  so 


106    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

far  away  she  couldn't  reach  him  with  her 
love. 

Probably  it  was  because  she  knew  so  much 
about  loneliness  and  believed  so  much  in 
Love  that  she  was  so  effective  in  her  under- 
taking. There  could  hardly  be  two  more 
perfect  qualifications  for  fellowship  with  other 
hearts. 

And  so  the  days  and  weeks  went  by,  and 
the  gallant  company  grew  and  grew.  By  the 
time  July  came  'round,  Jean  felt  as  if  she 
could  hardly  leave — things  were  moving  for- 
ward so  steadily.  But  Miss  Mary  said  the 
journey  to  the  Jeanne  d'Arc  country  would 
do  more  for  the  movement  than  anything 
Jean  could  possibly  do  by  staying  at  home. 

"  It  will  be  like  a  baptism,"  she  said  ;  "  a 
touching  of  your  spirit  with  hers,  in  those  dear 
places  which  her  spirit  particularly  haunts. 
You'll  bring  back  a  greatly  intensified  sense 
of  all  that  she  was  and  all  that  she  sym- 
bolizes." 

So  Jean  went  eagerly — the  more  so  as  she 
hoped  to  meet  Miss  Mary  in  Paris  after  her 
return  from  the  motor  trip. 

"  At  least  we  can  stand  together,"  Miss  Mary 
said,  "beside  Jeanne's  shining  gold-bronze 
statue  on  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  near  where  she 
fell  wounded  outside  the  walls  of  Paris  which 


THOSE  WHO  LINGER  107 

she  vainly  tried  to  take  from  its  English 
usurpers.  And  we  can  go  together  to  Notre 
Dame  where,  twenty-five  years  after  the 
French  had  allowed  Jeanne  to  be  burned  as 
a  witch,  they  solemnly,  in  the  presence  of  her 
poor  mother  and  brothers,  acclaimed  her  as 
the  saviour  of  her  country.  '  Of  whom  the 
world  was  not  worthy  ! '  When  we  grow 
weary  in  well-doing,  as  we  all  do  at  times,  we 
have  only  to  remember  how  defeated  they 
must  have  felt  who  did  the  most  for  hu- 
manity, and  whose  own  received  them  not. 
That  is  one  of  the  things  we  get  so  richly  in 
Europe :  almost  everywhere  we  go  we  find 
ourselves  in  places  made  sacred  by  the  strug- 
gles of  those  who  put  the  whole  world  in  their 
debt,  but  who  were,  in  their  lifetime,  despised 
and  rejected  by  the  men  they  sought  to  serve 
and  save.  It  keeps  our  courage  up  to  be  re- 
minded of  them  ;  because  we  know  how  poor 
the  world  would  be,  to-day  and  always,  if 
those  brave  souls  had  not  gone  on  and  on, 
doing  the  things  they  felt  they  ought  to  do." 
"  You  know  '  what  a  rare,  rare  world  it 
is,'  "  Jean  whispered,  lovingly.  "  And  you 
make  others  feel  it,  too.  You  make  us  feel 
that  struggle  doesn't  spoil  it — only  gives  us 
our  opportunity  to  be  brave  and  fine.  I 
think  it  is  the  most  wonderful  thing  anybody 


108    EVERYBODY S  BIRTHRIGHT 

could  possibly  do  for  others — just  what  you 
do!" 

"  Dear  Jean  !  do  you,  really  ?  So  often  it 
seems  to  me  that  I'm  not  amounting  to  any- 
thing at  all." 

"  Why,  Miss  Mary  1 "  Jean  cried,  reproach- 
fully. "You  ought  to  know  better  1  I  be- 
lieve you  put  all  the  people  you  meet  on 
their  mettle — make  them  want  to  be  braver 
and  better  than  they  ever  were  before.  Just 
think  of  what  you've  done  for  us  girls!  I 
don't  know  how  we  can  ever  thank  you " 

"You've  more  than  thanked  me,  darling, 
in  the  beautiful  things  you've  done.  I  don't 
know  when  anything  has  made  me  so 
happy." 

Jean  longed  to  ask  Miss  Mary  if  she  knew 
where  he  was  who  had  once  made  her  life  so 
radiant,  but  somehow  she  did  not  quite 
dare.  Then  she  bethought  her  to  ask  about 
the  Durlands. 

"  Do  you  ever  see  the  nice  professor  and 
his  wife  any  more  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  often.  Sometimes  I  see  them 
over  there,  too.  But  we  don't  go  bicycling 
any  more.  They're  teaching  in  Philadelphia 
now.  I  haven't  written  them  about  our 
Jeanne  d'Arc  movement — it's  such  a  long 
story  to  write.     But  when   I   see  them  I'll 


THOSE  WHO  LINGER  109 

tell  them  about  it ;  and  I  know  how  they'll 
love  it.  They'll  be  glad  of  it  for  their  young 
students,  too.  They  do  so  much  for  the  girls 
they  teach  ;  but  I  think  this  organization  will 
be  a  help  to  them." 

Still,  Jean  could  not  bring  herself  to  ask 
about  "him."  Instead,  she  threw  her  arms 
around  Miss  Mary's  neck  and  with  her  face 
close  to  Miss  Mary's  ear  she  whispered  : 

"When  I'm  at  Chinon— I'll— think  of 
you." 

It  wasn't  what  she  had  wanted  to  say,  but 
Miss  Mary  understood. 

"  I  know  you  will,  dear  1  And  I  want  you 
to  do  more :  In  the  high-up  tower  room 
where  Jeanne  lodged,  I  want  you  to  say  a 
little  prayer ;  I  want  you  to  say :  '  Dear  Fa- 
ther of  us  all,  bless  him,  wherever  he  is,  and 
send  some  one  to  him  who  can  take  him  to 
Rheims.'  " 

"  I  will,"  Jean  promised. 


X 

"  PLACES  WHEEE  THINGS  HAPPENED  " 

LONG  before  spring  time,  Adelaide 
Gerson's  mother  was  back  in  her 
home,  so  rested  and  refreshed,  so 
steadied  in  nerves  and  upbuilt  in  strength, 
that  Adelaide  was  repaid  ten  thousandfold 
for  her  labour  and  what  she  could  no  longer 
call  her  "  sacrifice  "  of  a  few  months'  school- 
ing. 

"  I  never  got  so  much  out  of  a  similar 
length  of  time  in  my  life  ! "  she  declared. 
"  Never  learned  such  a  lot  about  life,  and 
about  things,  and  about  my  family,  and 
about  myself.  I  wouldn't  take  anything  for 
my  discovery  of  the  fun  it  is  to  tackle  a  great 
big  old  hard  proposition,  and  put  it  through  1 
I'm  going  to  get  after  all  the  girls  I  can 
reach  who  are  mourning  and  having  fits  be- 
cause something  in  their  family  circumstances 
keeps  them  from  the  kinds  of  self-improve- 
ment they  want.  I  feel  as  if  I  know  more 
about  that  battle  than  any  other.  I  want  to 
pass  along  the  word  that  it's  a  good  fight  to 
get  into — you  find  out  how  many  ways  there 


"WHERE  THINGS  HAPPENED"  in 

are  of  being  improved  besides  the  way  you 
were  '  sot '  upon  !  Miss  Mary  has  helped  me 
to  lay  out  a  course  of  reading  about  the  peo- 
ple who  got  the  big  things  out  of  life,  and  did 
the  big  things,  because  they  learned  to  do 
what  was  given  them  to  do,  rather  than  what 
they  felt  like  doing.  I'm  going  to  recruit 
my  company  from  among  the  girls  I  know 
who  feel  affronted  every  time  they  meet  an 
obstacle  in  their  way.  I  want  to  tell  them  a 
few  things !  The  other  evening  Dad  and  I 
went  to  a  '  Movie.'  There  were  pictures  of 
Italian  cavalry  officers  practicing  hard  riding. 
The  mountainsides  they  came  scrambling 
down!  The  almost  perpendicular  places 
they  went  scrambling  up  !  The  deep,  swift 
streams  they  dashed  into  and  forded  1  It 
was  hair-raising.  Some  women  in  the 
audience  screamed.  The  man  who  ex- 
plained the  pictures  said  that  these  officers, 
many  of  whom  are  the  sons  of  great  Italian 
nobles,  have  this  kind  of  practice  nearly 
every  day.  They  must  be  so  bold  and  so 
skillful  that  they'll  gallop  anywhere,  and 
make  any  kind  of  a  charge  that  the  fearless 
leaders  want  to  make.  If  a  man  on  a  horse 
has  gone  over  that  precipice,  or  into  that 
torrent,  other  men  on  other  horses  mustn't 
hesitate — they    must    tackle    it    no    matter 


ii2    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

whether  it  looks  to  them  as  if  they'd  never 
make  it  or  not.  Dad  and  I  had  such  a  fine 
talk  about  it  coming  home.  'What  man 
has  done,  man  can  do,'  he  said.  '  It's  bad 
for  any  of  us  to  think  too  much  about  the 
size  of  our  obstacles,  and  the  peculiarities  of 
our  limitations.  We  ought  to  spend  more 
time  reading  and  thinking  about  the  people 
who  faced  bigger  difficulties,  and  conquered 
them.'  He  is  so  interested  in  our  idea. 
'  Courage  ! '  he  says,  '  courage  !  That's  the 
great,  big  thing  that  every  one  can  get  out 
of  life,  no  matter  what's  against  him.  Cour- 
age 1  We  all  need  it — all  the  time.  If  we 
have  it,  life's  worth  all  it  costs  and  more.  If 
we  haven't  got  courage,  life's  a  treadmill — a 
galley — a  chain-gang.'  " 

"  I've  kind  of  settled  on  my  company,  too," 
Isabel  said.  "  I'm  going  to  recruit  in  another 
quarter.  At  first  I  was  discouraged  about 
getting  anything  started.  Most  of  the  girls 
I  know  have  such  easy  times,  and  no  trials 
to  speak  of  except  how  to  get  finer  clothes 
or  more  matinee  money,  and  no  ambition  for 
anything  except  fun.  The  more  I  thought 
about  them  the  less  I  felt  like  telling  them 
about  their  birthright  and  their  debt  and  all 
that.  They  aren't  even  like  Althea — with  her 
great  affliction.     They  don't  seem  to  have 


"  WHERE  THINGS  HAPPENED"  113 

anything  about  them  that  might  make  them 
care  for  being  gallant.  I  told  Miss  Mary, 
and  she  said :  '  All  girls  have  some  capacity 
for  heroism.  They  may  not  know  it  or  want 
to  know  it — but  it's  there !  And  I  think  most 
of  them  long  to  test  it.  I  know  the  kind  of 
girls  you  mean,  and  I'm  sorrier  for  them  than 
for  any  other  kind — lots  sorrier  than  I  am  for 
Sophie  I  They  are  the  hardest  to  do  any- 
thing for.  If  you  can  get  any  of  them  to 
march  against  her  Orleans — whatever  it  is — 
and  on  to  her  Rheims,  you'll  be  a  captain  after 
Jeanne's  own  heart  and  pattern.  I  think 
you've  picked  out  one  of  the  most  difficult 
and  important  undertakings  you  could  have 
found.'  Well !  After  that,  I  made  up  my 
mind  I  was  going  to  stick.  But  I  can  tell 
you  I  get  terribly  discouraged — because  most 
of  the  girls  I  know  haven't  got  any  sense  of 
need.  They  think  of  nothing  but  having  a 
good  time." 

It  wasn't  very  long  since  Isabel  had  been 
of  one  mind  with  them ;  but  it  seemed  a  long, 
long  time  to  her  because  she  had  become 
interested  in  so  many  new  and  wonderful 
things. 

"You  are  like  that  monk  in  Stevenson's 
fable,"  Adelaide  declared — "the  one  who 
strayed  deep  into  the  wood  one  day,  and 


114     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

heard  a  bird  sing ;  and  when  he  returned  to 
the  monastery,  none  of  his  fellow  monks 
knew  him — it  was  as  if  he  had  been  gone 
fifty  years.  He  had  learned  a  rapture  of 
which  they  were  ignorant.  When  he  tried 
to  tell  about  it  they  couldn't  understand." 

"  I  don't  know  how  I  could  get  along  if  I 
didn't  have  some  one  to  talk  to  who  can  un- 
derstand !  "  Isabel  cried.  "  That's  the  lovely 
thing  about  belonging  to  this  gallant  army  ; 
it's  such  a  comfort  to  talk  things  over,  to  hear 
how  somebody  else  is  getting  on,  and  to  feel 
that  you've  got  comrades  who  know  what 
you're  trying  to  do — comrades  who  are  try- 
ing to  do  the  same  thing.  I  wouldn't  give  up 
what  I've  got  out  of  this  for  anything  !  And 
I've  only  begun  1 " 

The  girls  wrote  in  this  strain  to  Jean — 
wrote  her  steamer  letters,  which  seemed  to 
her  the  most  beautiful  and  precious  letters 
ever  written  ;  and  each  of  them  kept  for  her  a 
little  "  record  of  progress  "  which  was  mailed 
to  her  so  that  she  heard,  either  from  Isabel  or 
from  Adelaide,  each  week.  She  had  to  con- 
tent herself,  for  the  most  part,  with  post-card 
bulletins  in  reply,  because  continuous  travel- 
ling does  not  leave  much  leisure  for  letters ; 
but  she  looked  eagerly  forward  to  all  that  she 
would  have  to  tell  when  she  got  home. 


"  WHERE  THINGS  HAPPENED"  115 

Ida  Fahrlow  was  intent  on  Paris  shopping. 
After  a  fortnight  of  that  she  had  no  choice  of 
places  to  go ;  she  opined  that  "  most  any- 
where would  be  nice  in  the  motor."  Jim  was 
glad  of  the  Paris  fortnight  for  the  cafes  and 
the  races,  the  aviation  fields  with  their  fre- 
quent flights,  the  thousand-and-one  diver- 
sions that  the  playground  of  the  world  offers 
to  the  hard-working  man  from  communities 
where  play  has  hardly  begun  to  be  considered 
one  of  the  essential  parts  of  life.  He  had, 
too,  a  long-dormant  feeling  for  the  historic, 
and  Jean's  eagerness  to  visit  "  places  where 
things  happened  "  woke  in  him  some  of  the 
old  enthusiasms  of  his  boyhood.  He  found 
that  hero-worship  was  doing  him  great  good. 
The  sensations  he  had  at  Napoleon's  tomb 
seemed  to  recall  from  out  the  limbo  of  all- 
but-forgotten  things  that  dear,  eager,  "per- 
aspera-ad-astra  "  lad  he  used  to  be ;  and  Jim 
was  glad  to  meet  that  boy  again. 

By  the  time  the  Paris  fortnight  was  over 
he  had  grown  so  intimate  with  this  youth  of 
five-and-twenty  years  ago  that  he  and  Jean 
were  like  lad  and  lass  together  as  they  roamed 
the  narrow,  crooked  streets  of  the  Marais,  and 
sought  out  Roman  remains  on  the  left  bank, 
and  penetrated  courtyards,  public  and  private, 
looking  for  the  Dagobert  tower  and  the  wall 


n6    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

of  Philip  Auguste,  and  the  site  of  that  St.  Pol 
palace  where  Charles  VII  had  spent  his  so- 
neglected  boyhood,  and  for  the  gateway 
beneath  which  his  uncle  of  Orleans  had  been 
killed  by  the  Duke  of  Burgundy. 

When  they  were  ready  to  start  on  their 
motor  trip,  Jim  was  thoroughly  interested  in 
all  the  details  of  it,  and  enjoying  the  com- 
radeship of  his  daughter  more  than  he  had 
ever  enjoyed  any  other  company  in  his  life. 

Following  Jeanne's  footsteps  from  Dom- 
remy  to  Rouen  necessitated  some  "  round- 
about "  going ;  the  natural  geographical 
sequences  were  not  the  chronological  ones. 
But  the  Fahrlows  were  not  intent  principally 
on  time  saving. 

"  Let's  do  it  the  way  you  want  it,  Honey," 
Jim  said  to  Jean. 

Accordingly  they  planned  their  first  day's 
run  to  end  at  Troyes,  the  ancient  and  ex- 
ceedingly picturesque  city  where  King 
"  Harry  Hotspur  "  of  England  was  married 
to  the  sister  of  Dauphin  Charles,  and  where 
wicked  Queen  Isabeau  signed  the  treaty  by 
which  she  hoped  to  defraud  Charles  of  his 
crown  and  give  France  to  the  English. 

From  Troyes  it  was  a  run  of  only  about 
three  hours  to  Domremy. 

Some  historians  accept    the    house   now 


"  WHERE  THINGS  HAPPENED"  117 

standing  as  the  veritable  one  in  which  the 
Maid  of  France  came  into  the  world,  grew 
to  maidenhood,  and  from  which  she  set  forth 
on  that  great  mission  whence  she  was  never 
to  return.  Others  declare  this  house  was 
built  after  Jeanne's  death,  replacing  the  older 
structure  identified  with  her.  There  seems 
to  be  no  incontrovertible  proof  of  either  con- 
tention. Those  who  like  to  believe — as  the 
most  genial  travellers  have  ever  liked  to  do 
— may  thrill  with  the  thought  of  Jeanne  see- 
ing her  saints  in  the  red  embers  of  that  iden- 
tical old  fireplace,  hearing  her  Voices  beneath 
the  rafters  of  that  identical  low  room  she  is 
said  to  have  occupied.  And  those  who  like 
to  doubt  may  indulge  their  liking. 

Jean  had  no  disposition  towards  doubt. 
She  was  so  full  of  the  spirit  of  The  Maid,  so 
ecstatic  in  approaching  the  scenes  of  that 
life,  regarded  by  many  of  its  profoundest 
students  as  "the  most  wonderful  life  ever 
lived,  save  only  One,"  that  she  was  un- 
troubled by  quibbles  as  to  whether  this  cot- 
tage was  built  by  Jeanne's  parents  before  her 
birth  or  after  her  death.  Hereabouts  she  had 
had  her  little  girlhood  until  she  went  hence  to 
save  France.  Hither  she  came  no  more  after 
she  had  set  her  face  towards  Vaucouleurs 
and  Chinon  and  Orleans  and  Rheims.     These 


n8     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

were  the  hills  she  had  loved  ;  these  the  tiny 
rivers  whose  rippling  waters  she  had  known. 
The  village  that  gave  her  to  the  world  is  as 
small  and  as  poor  and  as  quiet  now  as  it  can 
have  been  five  hundred  years  ago  ;  the  church 
where  she  worshipped  God  is  as  humble  as 
when  she  knelt  there. 

Up  on  the  hill  where  Jeanne  first  heard  the 
Voices  there  is  a  great  new  basilica  and  monu- 
ment to  her ;  at  Vaucouleurs,  twenty  miles 
away,  the  national  Memorial  to  her  is  build- 
ing, close  to  the  ruins  of  Beaudricourt's 
chateau  ;  but  in  Domremy  is  little  to  mark 
the  flight  of  centuries  since  Jeanne  knew  it. 
If  the  great  white  sculptured  group  (repre^ 
senting  Jeanne,  led  by  the  genius  of  France , 
quitting  her  home  to  save  her  country)  could 
be  removed  from  the  garden  ;  if  a  touch  of 
genuine  inspiration  should  clear  the  cottage 
of  all  that  makes  it  a  museum,  and  restore  to 
it  furnishings  such  as  Jeanne  knew,  the  place 
might  easily  bridge  the  five  centuries  which 
tend  to  put  Jeanne  in  the  long  ago,  and  give 
the  pilgrim  a  feeling  almost  as  of  standing 
side  by  side  with  the  peasant  maid  who  went 
to  take  her  king  to  Rheims. 

Jean  cared  but  moderately  for  the  basilica 
on  the  hilltop.  The  thrill  was  not  there. 
The  tremendousness  of  Jeanne's  accomplish- 


"WHERE  THINGS  HAPPENED''  119 

ment  is  not  suggested  by  any  piling  up  of 
stone  and  embellishment  with  marbles. 
Nothing  so  emphasizes  her  greatness  as  the 
littleness  and  humbleness  of  the  village  and 
of  the  home  from  which  she  went  to  lead  the 
armies  of  France.  Much  that  we  do  to  me- 
morialize the  great,  tends  to  set  them  apart 
from  us,  to  singularize  their  achievements. 
Yet  many  of  the  things  for  which  they  fought 
are  part  of  a  vanished  past,  like  the  Kingdom 
of  France  ;  that  which  does  not  change,  for 
which  we  do  not  lose  our  need,  is  the  spirit 
which  made  them  victorious.  We  do  the 
most  honour  to  our  great  when  we  find  in 
their  lives,  not  their  singular  fitness  nor  their 
singular  opportunity,  but  that  which  might 
also  be  in  our  lives, — if  we  would  ! 

Never,  never  would  Jean  forget  Domremy  ! 
Never  again,  while  she  lived,  could  she  hear 
Voices  calling  her  to  duty,  and  plead  that 
she  was  too  young  or  too  untaught  or  too 
unequipped.  Always,  always  she  would  re- 
member Jeanne  going  from  Domremy  to 
save  France.  No  wonder  Miss  Mary  had 
wanted  Jean  to  make  this  journey  ! 

At  Vaucouleurs  they  climbed  the  hill 
Jeanne  had  so  often  climbed  to  present  her- 
self before  Beaudricourt,  and  sought  the  site 
of  that  tiny  chapel  where  she  had  spent  so 


120    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

many  hours  in  prayer  ;  they  pictured  her  rid- 
ing forth,  at  last,  through  the  Gate  of  France, 
equipped  by  the  poor  folk  of  the  village  and 
escorted  by  the  two  squires  she  had  won  to 
her  service. 

Then  they  went  on  to  Nancy  to  spend  the 
night.  Jeanne  went  thither  too,  on  command 
of  the  Duke  of  Lorraine.  He  wanted  to  see 
her.  Some  say  he  believed  in  her  and  would 
have  sent  her  to  the  Dauphin,  but  that  Jeanne 
told  him  he  must  first  make  his  services  ac- 
ceptable unto  God  by  putting  away  his  mis- 
tress— whereupon  the  Duke  allowed  Jeanne 
to  depart  unaided. 

Next  day  the  pilgrims  started  from  Nancy 
back  to  Vaucouleurs  (they  had  gone  to  Nancy 
less  because  of  Jeanne's  connection  with  it 
than  because  of  its  having  the  only  good 
hotel  accommodation  anywhere  around)  and 
thence  over  Jeanne's  route  towards  Chinon. 
Their  destination  that  night  was  Auxerre,  a 
long  day's  run  from  Nancy,  and  a  town  so 
full  of  interest  that  they  were  glad  to  make  a 
day's  stop  there. 

At  Salbris,  where  Jeanne  made  one  of  her 
halts,  the  Fahrlows  turned  from  her  course 
towards  Chinon,  to  spend  a  night  at  Bourges, 
which  was  the  capital  of  Charles  VII's  king- 
dom until  Jeanne  delivered  to  him  his  larger 


"WHERE  THINGS  HAPPENED"  121 

inheritance.  Then,  after  seeing  the  cathedral 
and  the  many  old  houses,  including  that  of 
Charles  VII's  goldsmith  and  money-lender, 
Jacques  Cceur,  they  went  back  to  Salbris  and 
11  picked  up  the  trail "  again,  as  Jim  said : 
Romorantin,  Selles,  St.  Aignan,  Loches — 
where  beautiful  Agnes  Sorel  whom  Charles 
loved  was  buried,  and  where  Charles'  son, 
Louis  XI,  kept  good  and  great  men  for  years 
in  iron  cages — and  then  to  St.  Catherine-de- 
Fierbois,  where  Jeanne  miraculously  directed 
the  finding  of  the  ancient  sword  that  had 
lain  forgotten  since  Charles  Martel  drove  the 
Saracens  from  Tours,  nearly  seven  hundred 
years  before. 

It  was  nearing  six  o'clock  of  a  perfect 
August  evening  when  they  came  to  a  village 
named  Trogues  and  had  their  first  sight  of 
the  Vienne,  whose  bank  they  followed  to 
Chinon. 


XI 
GETTING  TO  WHERE  THE  DAUPHIN  WAS 

JEAN  was  more  excited,  going  to  Chinon, 
than  she  had  ever  been  about  anything 
in  all  her  life.  She  thought  that  Jeanne 
herself  couid  hardly  have  felt  more  thrill 
when  she  looked  up,  for  the  first  time,  at  the 
great  castle  on  the  high  hill's  crest,  and 
realized  that  she  was  come  at  last  to  Chinon, 
whither  she  had  said  she  must  come  if  she 
had  to  wear  her  legs  off  to  the  knees. 

What  were  The  Maid's  thoughts  as  she 
gazed  up  at  the  towers  and  battlements 
silhouetted  against  the  sky  ?  Did  she  ever 
doubt  if  the  Dauphin  would  receive  her  ? 
Jean  wondered.  As  for  herself,  her  thoughts 
were  an  inextricable  commingling  of  Jeanne's 
coming  here,  and  of  Miss  Mary's  coming,  and 
of  her  own. 

It  had  been  market  day  in  Chinon,  and 
the  small  square  was  still  strewn  with  litter  of 
vegetable  stalks  and  straw  and  other  refuse, 
while  some  of  the  older  gossips  lingered  over 
the  business  of  packing  their  unsold  wares  or 
truck  and  volubly  discussed  the  day's  events. 

122 


WHERE  THE  DAUPHIN  WAS     123 

There  were  pretty  shade  trees  in  the  old 
square,  and  there  was  the  fountain  Miss 
Mary  had  told  Jean  about,  and  the  girls,  and 
women,  and  children  filling  their  big  bottles 
or  jars  or  jugs  with  water  for  the  cooking  of 
the  evening  meal.  Yes,  and  back  of  the 
square  rose  the  steep,  cobbled  street  of  steps, 
flanked  by  old  houses,  up  which  Jeanne  had 
toiled  to  see  the  Dauphin.  And  here  was  the 
little  hotel  Miss  Mary  had  told  about,  where 
one  could  lie  abed  and  listen  to  the  plashing 
of  the  fountain  and  to  the  shrill  voices  of  the 
gossips,  and  look  up  at  the  great  clock  tower 
beneath  which  had  passed  so  many  interest- 
ing persons,  so  many  dear  to  romance. 

After  dinner  the  Fahrlows  went  for  a  walk 
along  the  beautiful  wide  quay,  overarched  by 
splendid  trees,  and  sat  on  a  bench  there  by 
the  riverside  and  talked  of  Jeanne. 

"  I  don't  see  how  she  could  have  left  her 
parents  the  way  she  did,"  Ida  commented — 
for  the  hundredth  time.  "  Going  off,  goodness 
knew  where,  with  a  lot  of  strange  soldiers." 

"  And  they  say  she  was  a  great  '  mother's 
girl,'  "  Jean  answered  ;  "  that  she  loved  work- 
ing with  her  mother  at  the  home  tasks.  She 
was  very,  very  homesick  for  Domremy  and 
her  old  life,  and  when  she  had  crowned  the 
King  at  Rheims  she  begged  him  to  let  her  go 


124    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

back  and  be  as  she  was  before.  But  he 
wouldn't  listen  to  her.  I  am  glad  I  live  in  a 
time  when  a  girl  can  go  to  the  uncrowned 
and  take  them  to  Rheims  without  having  to 
leave  her  home  and  her  parents  and  all  her 
dear  friends.  That's  one  of  the  beautiful 
things  about  our  gallant  army — nobody  needs 
to  Jbe  left  behind  1  We  can  all  march  to- 
gether 1 " 

Jim's  arm  was  about  Jean's  waist,  and  he 
drew  her  to  him  with  a  straining  tenderness 
which  expressed  his  gladness  in  this  march- 
ing "  together."  He  had  been  wont  to 
think  that  he  got  as  much  happiness  out  of 
his  family  as  it  was  possible  for  a  man  to  get. 
Now  he  knew  that  he  had  never  before  real- 
ized what  family  ties  may  mean.  He  had 
been  content  to  feel  himself  a  bounteous  pro- 
vider of  material  comforts  and  luxuries.  He 
had  never  dreamed  what  a  relationship  might 
be  wherein  he  should  be  the  soldier-comrade 
of  his  daughter,  marching  along  the  same 
highway,  with  the  same  guerdon  in  view. 
When  they  were  back  home  again,  their  days 
would  be  filled  with  different  interests — not 
with  common  ones,  as  they  were  here — but  the 
same  great  general  interest  would  remain, 
and  their  understanding  of  each  other  would 
grow  and  grow,  and  between  them  they  might 


WHERE  THE  DAUPHIN  WAS     125 

even  make  a  soldier  out  of  Ida — at  any  rate, 
they  would  try ! 

The  heart  has  few  desires  so  intense  as  the 
desire  for  comradeship,  the  yearning  to  feel  a 
common  cause  with  another  soul,  and  to 
share  with  another  some  of  the  great  expe- 
riences. Jim  had  been  less  conscious  of 
heart-hunger  than  many  are ;  but  now  that 
he  was  realizing  deep  satisfactions  of  which, 
heretofore,  he  had  not  even  dreamed,  he  was 
often  moved  to  wonder  how  he  had  got  on 
in  the  days  when  Jean  and  he  were  living  in 
separate  worlds,  as  it  were,  and  meeting, 
like  most  fathers  and  daughters,  chiefly  at  the 
dinner  table. 

The  morning  was  a  glorious  one.  Jean 
had  stayed  awake  until  near  midnight  listen- 
ing to  the  music  of  the  fountain  and  to  the 
voices  in  the  little  square,  and  thinking  of 
many  things  ;  but  she  was  awake  very  early, 
rejoicing  in  the  brilliant  sunshine  and  in  the 
chattering  of  the  girls  and  women  come  to 
fetch  water  just  as,  without  doubt,  they  had 
done  when  Jeanne  tarried  here  at  the  foot  of 
the  hill — before  she  was  quartered,  as  the 
Dauphin's  guest,  in  the  castle. 

The  country  around  Chinon  is  famed  for  its 
cliff  dwellings.  The  sides  of  the  hills  are 
hollowed  out,  in  innumerable  places,  to  make 


126    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

rude  homes.  In  some  of  these  caverns  in  the 
rocks  families  have  been  living,  generation 
after  generation  of  them,  for  centuries.  The 
street  which  Jeanne  climbed  to  the  castle  gate 
had,  in  her  day,  and  still  has,  several  of  these 
hewn-out  houses,  in  the  doorways  of  which 
stood  women  and  children  regarding  the 
Fahrlows  with  curious  interest.  In  front  of 
one  of  them  a  particularly  bewitching  small 
kitten  played,  rolling  over  and  over  in  a 
kitten-fashion  which  has  certainly  not  changed 
while  kingdoms  have  waxed  and  waned.  It 
can  hardly  have  been  otherwise  than  that 
Jeanne  passed  at  least  one  frolicking  kitten 
on  her  way  up  that  street  of  cobbled  steps. 
Nor  is  it  probable  that  the  women  and  chil- 
dren framed  in  the  doorways  looked  very 
different  in  1429  than  in  1913  ;  there  are  some 
French  styles  (in  costuming,  too  !)  which  alter 
little  as  the  centuries  roll  by ;  and  the  peas- 
antry, who  suffer  from  so  many  kinds  of 
tyranny,  are  spared  the  tyranny  of  rapidly- 
changing  modes. 

But  no  men-at-arms  go  up  and  down  the 
steep  street  now  ;  no  courtiers  pass  and  re- 
pass the  rude  cavern  dwellings.  Wars  and 
splendours  have  alike  deserted  Chinon  ;  but 
babies  and  kittens  persist. 

Of  the  castle,  once  so  swarmingly    alive 


WHERE  THE  DAUPHIN  WAS    127 

with  soldiers  and  favourites  and  servants,  so 
full  of  plot  and  counterplot,  there  is  naught 
now  but  crumbling  ruins  :  roofless  great  halls 
rcarpeted  with  grass  ;  untenanted  deep  dun- 
geons ;  some  few  turret  chambers,  like  the 
one  in  which  Jeanne  slept. 

The  Fahrlows  crossed  what  had  once  been 
the  drawbridge,  and  pulled  the  bell-chain  on 
the  great  gate  beneath  the  clock  tower.  An 
aged  warder,  accompanied  by  a  very  young 
granddaughter  and  a  still  younger  kitten, 
opened  the  small  doorway  in  the  gate  and  the 
Fahrlows  passed  in. 

One  of  the  trials  of  visiting  castles  and 
other  like  places  of  historic  interest  is  that 
usually  one  must  go  through  them  in  a  crowd, 
herded  along  with  all  possible  haste  by  a 
caretaker  or  guide  unable  to  conceal  the  con- 
tempt he  feels  for  sightseers.  The  singsong 
spiritless  explanations  offered  are  curiously 
alike  ;  a  guard  who  has  served  at  Compiegne 
might  almost  be  transferred  to  Fontainebleau 
without  having  to  learn  a  new  chant ;  one 
who  has  shown  the  Trianons  would  do  as  well 
at  any  other  place  where  the  mantel-vases 
are  from  Sevres,  and  the  inlaid  centre  tables 
were  presents  from  Czars,  and  the  tapestries 
are  Gobelins  and  the  carpets  are  Aubussons, 
and  the  chairs  are  examples  of  the  art  of 


128    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

Beauvais.  If,  while  one  is  trying  not  to  heai 
this  recitative  about  "  pendules  "  and  "  tapis- 
serie,"  he  would  fain  know  what  great  scenes 
of  history  were  enacted  here,  he  must  sup- 
ply that  out  of  his  own  memory  of  things 
read.  In  castles,  as  in  Rome,  one  finds  what 
he  takes  thither.  Nor  should  he  be  slow  in 
assembling  his  recollections,  for  the  narrative 
of  the  chairs  and  tables  is  brief,  and  when  it 
has  been  delivered,  to  the  accompaniment  of 
many  shuffling  feet,  the  whole  flock  must 
move  on  after  its  bell-wether. 

Chinon,  having  no  tables  from  Czars,  nor 
vases  from  Sevres,  is  left  free  to  the  fancy  of 
visitors.  They  may  roam  where  they  like 
among  the  ruins,  and  linger  where  they  will. 
A  few  tablets  mark  spots  associated  with 
Jeanne's  stay  there  ;  but  whatever  else  is 
memorable  of  the  chateau's  nine  centuries,  or 
of  the  Roman  fort  which  preceded  it,  the 
pilgrim  must  remind  himself.  The  history  of 
this  place  bristles  with  great  names  ;  but  so 
completely  does  one  of  them  overshadow  all 
the  rest  that  few  of  the  tourists  who  wander 
amid  the  ruins  think  of  the  castle  in  any  other 
connection  than  with  the  peasant  girl  who 
came  hither  to  tell  Charles  of  Valois  she  must 
take  him  to  be  crowned  King  of  France. 

Jean  was  so  full  of  thrills  she  could  hardly 


WHERE  THE  DAUPHIN  WAS    129 

contain  herself.  Her  eyes  were  brimming 
and  there  was  a  great  big  aching  lump  in  her 
throat.  She  was  reliving  the  events  she  had 
read  so  much  about.  It  was  not  a  brilliant 
August  morning  with  sunshine  flooding  the 
beautiful  valley  of  the  Vienne  ;  it  was  January, 
and  bitter  cold.  It  was  not  a  roofless,  floor- 
less  ruin  of  a  room  she  stood  in  ;  it  was 
a  great  audience  chamber,  crowded  with 
courtiers  and  servants  and  men-at-arms,  all 
full  of  mockery  for  The  Maid  whose  errand 
was  well  known  to  them.  Jean  could  feel 
their  scorn  for  The  Maid's  presumption  ;  but 
she  could  feel,  too,  Jeanne's  indifference  to 
them,  her  intense  concentration  on  the  thing 
she  had  come  to  do,  the  prince  she  had  come 
to  see. 

Jeanne's  audience  with  Charles  was  in  the 
Middle  Chateau  of  the  three  which,  in  one 
vast  enclosure,  constituted  the  castle  of 
Chinon.  The  chateau  in  which  she  was 
lodged  was  the  furthest  from  the  main  en- 
trance, and  a  very  deep  moat  separated  it 
from  the  Middle  Chateau.  Jean  and  her 
parents  crossed  the  stone  bridge  spanning 
this  moat,  and  came  to  the  Coudray  Tower 
where  Jeanne  lived. 

Ida  took  one  look  up  the  steeply-winding 
stone  steps,  as  she  had  given  one  glance  at 


130    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

the  descents  into  the  dungeons,  and  declined 
to  venture. 

"You  want  to  go,  don't  you,  Comrade?" 
Jim  said  to  Jean. 

"  Yes — oh,  yes !  I  wouldn't  miss  it  for  the 
world." 

"  Shall  I  go  up  with  you,  or  shall  I  stay 
with  Mother?  Isn't  it — wasn't  there  some- 
thing special  about  it  for  you — something 
that  made  you  feel  as  if  you  and  the  other 
Maid  were  to  get  closer  there  than  anywhere  ? 
Wouldn't  she  come  closer  if  you  were  alone  ? " 

"  Maybe  she  would,"  Jean  whispered.  And 
at  the  foot  of  the  winding  stair  she  lifted  up 
her  face  for  a  specially  precious  kiss  from  this 
dear  father  who  was  so  rapidly  forgetting  the 
things  that  had  made  his  girl  an  enigma  to 
him,  and  relearning  the  things  of  his  own 
idealistic  youth  which  made  him  his  daugh- 
ter's comprehending  comrade. 


XII 
"WHEKE  KINGS  WEEE  CKOWNED  " 

JEAN  had  never  felt  so  intensely,  quietly 
excited.  If  she  had  known  she  was  to 
meet,  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  The  Maid 
embodied,  she  could  not  have  felt  more  awed, 
more  expectant.  It  was  a  bitter  disappoint- 
ment, a  severe  shock,  to  find,  when  she 
stepped  into  Jeanne's  chamber,  another 
visitor,  a  man.  And  he  looked  as  if  her  com- 
ing were  anything  but  agreeable  to  him. 

"  I  hope  he'll  go  soon,"  she  thought. 

He  must  have  hoped  she  would  go  soon, 
for  he  showed  surprise  and  a  little  impatience 
when,  instead  of  the  hasty  glance  he  had  ex- 
pected would  suffice,  she  lingered  and  seemed 
waiting  for  him  to  leave. 

Jean  thought  he  should  have  gone  first,  be- 
cause he  had  had  the  place  to  himself  before 
she  came.  Then  she  reminded  herself  that  if 
she  had  been  in  the  midst  of  her  reflections 
there  she  would  have  resented  his  intrusion 
upon  them  ;  so  she  decided  to  go,  and  come 
back  here  after  he  had  gone.  She  turned 
I3I 


132     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

towards  the  stairs.  The  gentleman  was  re- 
garding her  curiously.  Jean's  apologetic 
feeling  expressed  itself  involuntarily. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  she  said,  in  English, 
without  thinking  whether  the  gentleman 
might  understand  her. 

He  flushed. 

"  I — why,  don't  go,  mademoiselle  ;  you 
have  as  good  right  here — you  have  a  right 
here  as  well  as  I." 

"  I'll  come  back  later,"  she  murmured. 
"  It  is  a  place  where — where  one  likes  to  be 
alone.     I'm  sorry  I  disturbed  you." 

He  stared  at  her. 

"  You — care  a  great  deal  about  The 
Maid  ?"  he  asked. 

She  nodded.     "  And  you  ?  " 

"  I — why,  yes  ;  I  care  about  her,  too." 

"  Do  you  feel  that  when  you  come  here 
you  are — nearer  to  her  than  you  are  any- 
where else?" 

The  gentleman  looked  startled — as  if  Jean 
had  read  his  thoughts. 

"  Nearer  to  whom  ?  "  he  demanded. 

"  Why,  to  The  Maid." 

"  I — I  don't  know.     Do  you  ?  " 

"  I've  never  been  here  before,"  Jean  an- 
swered. "  But  I  felt  as  if  her  presence  would 
be  here  more  than  almost  any  other  place. 


KINGS  WERE  CROWNED       133 

When  you  love  and  reverence  some  one  very, 
very  much  it  helps  you,  to  be  in  a  place 
where  you  know  they've  been — doesn't  it?" 

He  did  not  reply  immediately,  and  Jean, 
looking  up  at  him,  expectantly,  saw  that  his 
eyes  were  full  of  tears.  Then  her  own  eyes 
filled. 

"He's  sad,  too,"  she  said  to  herself.  "I 
think  he  has  lost  some  one  he  loved.  I  won- 
der if  I  ought  to  tell  him  about  how  Jeanne 
helps  me  to  be  brave?  " 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  while  Jean  was  wondering. 
"  When  you  love  some  one  very,  very  much 
it  helps  you,  to  be  in  a  place  where  you  know 
they've  been — but  it  hurts  you  too.  It  must 
help  more  than  it  hurts,  though — or  one 
wouldn't  keep  coming." 

He  was  reflecting  audibly  rather  than  ad- 
dressing Jean. 

"Do  you — keep  coming  here?"  she  whis- 
pered. 

"  I  come  here  every  year — on  the  eighth 
of  August." 

"She  wasn't  here  in  August." 

"Who  wasn't?" 

"Jeanne." 

"  Wasn't  she  ?  " 

"  No,  sir.  She  came  in  January,  and  she 
went  away  in  April  or  May — to  Orleans." 


134    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

"  You  know  her  story  well.  Do  all  young 
ladies  in  America — I  presume  you're  from 
America — know  so  much  about  the  Maid  of 
France  ?  " 

"  I  don't  believe  so.  I  didn't — until  a  few 
months  ago  I  just  knew  a  little  about  her — 
like  most  people  do.  I  didn't  know  how  she 
can  help — to-day — to  take  the  uncrowned  to 
their  inheritance." 

"  Can  she  ? " 

"  Yes,  sir.  That's  why  I  study  her  so 
closely.  She's  meant  so  much  to  me,  and 
I'm  trying  to  help  others  realize  what  her 
story  means  to  us  all — to  everybody." 

"Does  it?" 

"Maybe  not  if  you  just  read  about  it  in 
books.  But  if  you  think  of  it  as  Miss  Mary 
has  taught  me  to,  it  does." 

"Is  Miss  Mary  your  governess?" 

"  No,  sir ;  she  is  a  lady  who  knew  my 
mother  when  they  were  both  girls.  And 
when  my  sister  died — my  twin — and  I  wanted 
to  die  too,  Miss  Mary  came  to  see  us,  and 
told  me  the  most  wonderful  things  about  The 
Maid — things  which  make  her  life  not  just  a 
story  of  what  happened  once,  long  ago,  but 
a  story  of  what  can  happen  any  time  to 
any  one.  It  has  changed  all  the  world  for 
me — knowing  Miss  Mary  and  The  Maid." 


"She  meant  that  1 1 

had  gone  where 

nothing  kept 

me  safe" 


KINGS  WERE  CROWNED       135 

"  And  this  is  your  first  visit  to  Chinon  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir.  My  father  and  mother  brought 
me  over  so  I  could  visit  the  places  where 
Jeanne  lived.  We  went  to  Domremy  first, 
and  Vaucouleurs.  Next  we're  going  to  Poi- 
tiers, and  then  back  to  Blois  and  Orleans, 
and  on  to  Rheims,  and  all  the  way  through 
to  Rouen.  Miss  Mary  planned  our  trip  for 
us.  We're  making  it  in  a  motor,  but  she 
made  it,  years  ago,  on  a  bicycle." 

"  With  the  Durlands  ?  " 

It  was  Jean's  turn  to  stare. 

"Yes,  sir;  how  did  you — are  you — Lad- 
die ? " 

"  I — was.     How  did  you  know  ?  " 

"  Miss  Mary  told  me,  just  a  little.  She  was 
trying  to  comfort  me.  She  was  trying  very 
hard,  because  she  said  I  was  like  the  Jean 
who — never  came — to  her — you  know.  She 
told  me  how  she  could  understand  the  feel- 
ing when  some  one  goes  out  of  life  and 
leaves  it  so  much  worse  than  empty — all  full 
of  memories  that  taunt.  I  asked  her  if  you 
had  gone  to  Heaven,  and  she  said,  '  No ; 
Heaven  isn't  far,  and  it  keeps  our  beloved 
safe  for  us.'  She  said  you  had  gone  much 
further — I  didn't  understand." 

"  I  do,"  he  answered.  "  She  meant  that  I 
had  gone  where  nothing  kept  me  safe." 


136     EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

"  I  don't  know.  I  asked  her  if  you  had 
gone  so  far  away  she  couldn't  love  you  any 
more,  and  she  said  there  wasn't  any  place  in 
the  universe  that  far  away." 

"She  said  that?" 

"  I — perhaps  she  wouldn't  want  me  to  tell. 
I  didn't  think  1  I  don't  understand  at  all.  I 
only  know — but  I  mustn't  tell  what  I  know ; 
she  might  not  want  me  to." 

"  No,"  he  agreed.  "  She  might  not.  But 
I  don't  believe  she'd  mind  your  telling  me  if 
she  is  well  and  happy." 

"She  is  well,"  Jean  answered;  "and  she 
is  happy  in  the  way  people  can  learn  to  be 
by  living  in  others  instead  of  in  themselves. 
I  think  she's  the  most  wonderful  person  in 
the  whole  world " 

"She  always  was,"  he  interposed,  rever- 
ently. , 

"  May  I — tell  her  that  I  saw  you  here  ?  " 

"  If  you  think  she'd  care  to  know." 

"  I  know  she  would.  I'm  only  a  very 
young  girl,  but  I  realize  that — the  ground 
whereon  I  stand  is — is  holy.  I  mean — not 
The  Maid,  though  she  makes  it  holy,  too,  but 
what — whatever  it  is  that  makes  you  come 
here,  and  that  makes  Miss  Mary  feel  that 
she  couldn't  bear  to  come  here.  It's  some- 
thing very  great  and  very  sacred,  I  know. 


KINGS  WERE  CROWNED       137 

Does  she  know  you  come  here  every 
year  ?  " 

"  I  don't  think  so  ;  I  don't  see  how  she 
could  know.  I've  never  told  any  one  be- 
fore." 

"  Would  you  mind  if  I  told  her  that  ?  You 
see,  she  has  done  so  much  for  me,  to  help  me 
and  make  me  understand  '  what  a  rare,  rare 
world  it  is,'  that  there's  nothing  I  want  to  do 
so  much  as  to  be  of  some  help  to  her.  And 
though  I  don't  know  why  it  is  that — that  she 
cares  so  much  and  you  don't  know  it,  and 
you — you  seem  to  care  and  she  doesn't  know 
it,  I'm  sure  it  would  mean,  oh  !  ever  so  much 
to  her  to  hear  that  you  come  to  Chinon  on 

the Is    this    the    day,   the   eighth   of 

August,  that  you  were  here  with  her?" 

He  nodded. 

"  I — I  think,"  Jean  ventured  shyly,  "  that 
you  might  like  to  know  something,  too. 
Because  if  Miss  Mary  had  never  been  here, 
and  if  this  place  hadn't  been  so  precious  to 
her,  and  if  she  hadn't  loved  The  Maid  in  a 
way  different  from  the  way  anybody  else  has 
loved  and  understood  her,  she  couldn't  have 
thought  out  the  things  she  did  to  make  Chinon 
a — a  place  in  everybody's  life." 

She  told  him  about  the  uncrowned  and 
their  birthright  and   their  debt ;   and  about 


138    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

some  of  those  she  had  found  at  Chinon  and 
started  towards  Rheims.  And  she  was  so 
earnest,  so  sweet,  so  radiant  with  great  pur- 
pose, that  it  seemed  to  him  who  listened  as  if 
the  tower  room  were  once  more  suffused  with 
the  purity  and  ardour  of  a  maid's  spirit ;  as  if 
not  the  lingering  memories  of  Jeanne  herself 
were  more  potent  than  the  presence  of  this 
dear  young  girl  who  also  had  glimpsed  how 
the  uncrowned,  of  whom  the  world  is  ever  full, 
may  be  helped  by  the  pure  faith  of  maiden- 
hood, to  their  coronation,  their  kingship  over 
life.  And  Mary  had  taught  her  this  !  Mary, 
whose  memory  had  brought  him  so  many 
times  to  Chinon,  but  had  never  led  him  to 
Rheims.  By  what  miracle  had  her  spirit,  so 
insufficiently  realized  by  him  all  these  years, 
reached  him  at  last  through  this  exquisite 
girl — this  Jean  to  whom  she  had  tried  to 
give  what  she  had  not  been  permitted  to 
give  to  the  Jean-who-might-have-been  1 

"  I  think  your  coming  here  is  as  wonderful 
as  the  other  Maid's,"  he  said,  brokenly.  "  I 
think  Heaven  must  have  sent  you  to  me, 
here  at  Chinon,  as  surely  as  it  sent  Jeanne  to 
the  Dauphin.  And  I  want  you  to  lead  me  to 
Rheims.  This  is  what  happened  :  I  was  a 
poor  and  struggling  student  when  Miss  Mary 
and  I  met — full  of  ideals  and  great  venera- 


KINGS  WERE  CROWNED       139 

tions  and  all  sorts  of  splendid  visions  and 
purposes.  Then,  most  unexpectedly,  a  young 
cousin  of  mine  died ;  his  father  was  my 
mother's  brother ;  this  cousin  was  the  only 
child,  and  there  was  a  lot  of  money.  Uncle 
offered  to  make  me  his  heir  if  I  would  go 
into  business  with  him  and  learn  to  carry  it 
on  after  his  death.  I  gave  up  architecture. 
I  gave  up  poverty  and  struggle  and  visions 
and  venerations.  I  went  into  my  uncle's 
business.  I  had  a  lot  of  money  to  spend.  I 
had  a  good  deal  of  leisure  and  indulgence. 
The  kind  of  people  I  lived  my  new  life 
among  were  not  at  all  like  the  Durlands  and 
Miss  Binford  and  others  I  had  known  and— 
and  loved — before.  I — I  lost  sight  of  my— 
my  greater  inheritance.  I  lived  in  a  world 
where — where  she  had  no  part  nor  lot.  I 
tried  to  get  her  to  live  there  too,  but  she 
wouldn't — and  she  was  right.  It's  a  world 
of  mean  hopes  and  cheap  desires,  as  Steven- 
son says.  Yet,  in  all  these  years,  I've  had 
some  citizenship  in  the  other  world  where 
she  lives,  because  I — well,  because  I  carried 
her  in  my  heart  all  the  time.  I  come  abroad 
every  summer.  Often  the  only  thing  about 
the  trip  that  I  find  myself  really  caring  about 
is  coming  here,  to  stand  once  more  in  this 
tower  room  where  I  stood  when — when  life 


140    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

was  so  different  to  me.  You  wonder  why  I 
never  tried  to — to  get  back  to  her  and  her 
world !  You're  too  young  and  steadfast  to 
understand.  Perhaps  you'll  never  under- 
stand how  much  weaker  some  folks  are  than 
their  best  selves,  their  purest  desires — but  if 
you  don't  learn  that,  you  won't  learn,  either, 
the  humbleness  that  goes  with  it.  I've  come 
here,  year  after  year,  and  mourned  the  king- 
dom that  I  almost  had — and  lost.  I  didn't 
see  any  possible  way  of  getting  through  my 
foes — to  Rheims.  But  you've  come  and  told 
me  your  Vision,  and  now — I  think  I  see.  I 
— I  thank  God  for  you,  Miss  Jean  !  " 

That  day  when  the  Fahrlows  left  Chinon 
for  Poitiers  a  letter  went  to  Miss  Mary's  Paris 
address  to  be  forwarded  to  her  wherever  she 
might  be,  urging  her  to  meet  Jean  at  Rheims 
— "  for  a  very,  very  special  reason,  dear  Miss 
Mary  ;  I  wouldn't  ask  you  if  it  were  not  for 
something  which  has  come  to  me — some- 
thing we  could  never  have  foreseen." 

Miss  Mary  was  at  St.  Quentin  when  the 
letter  reached  her,  and  she  telegraphed  to 
Jean,  at  Orleans,  that  she  would  be  at  Rheims 
on  the  day  appointed. 

It  was  very  late  when  the  Fahrlows  got 
in,  and  Jean  was  glad  bedtime  was  near, 
partly  because  she  thought  Miss  Mary  would 


KINGS  WERE  CROWNED       141 

not  expect  an  explanation  that  night,  and 
partly  because,  when  there  are  hours  of 
waiting  to  be  got  through,  sleep  is  a  great 
help  towards  shortening  them. 

She  had  talked  over  and  over  with  her  fa- 
ther and  mother  all  the  possible  ways  of 
breaking  the  news  to  Miss  Mary.  And  after 
a  great  deal  of  discussion  they  had  agreed 
that  they  ought  not  to  break  it  at  all.  No 
one,  however  loving  and  sympathetic,  could 
presume  to  do  more  than  to  arrange  an  op- 
portunity for  these  two,  so  long  separated,  to 
meet ;  no  one  could  presume  to  say  first  to 
Miss  Mary  what  it  was  the  sacred  right,  and 
debt,  of  her  lover  to  say  to  her  for  himself. 

So  Jean,  on  arriving,  pleaded — truthfully 
enough — her  tiredness  and  sleepiness,  and 
whispered  in  Miss  Mary's  ear : 

"  It's  quite  a  long  story — why  I  asked  you 
to  come.     Can  you  wait  till  morning  ?  " 

And,  of  course,  Miss  Mary  said  she  could. 

At  breakfast — Jim  Fahrlow  always  liberally 
supplemented  the  Continental  breakfast  of 
coffee  and  rolls,  with  fruit  and  bacon  and 
eggs  and  toast  and  even  fried  potatoes — Jean 
tried  to  tell  all  she  could  about  the  trip  ; 
about  every  part  of  it  except  the  meeting  in 
the  Coudray  Tower  at  Chinon.  And  when 
breakfast    was    over    she    slipped   her  arm 


142    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

through  Miss  Mary's,  and  they  went  over  to 
the  Cathedral. 

The  vast  bulk  of  it,  looming  up  in  the  star- 
lighted  night,  had  impressed  the  Fahrlows 
as  they  drove  up  to  the  hotel,  a  stone's  throw 
distant  from  the  great  west  front.  But  in  the 
morning  sunshine  the  majesty  of  the  grand 
old  edifice  was  all  but  overpowering. 

The  possession  of  that  sacred  vessel  in 
which  a  dove  is  said  to  have  brought  from 
heaven  holy  oil  for  the  baptism  of  Clovis  in 
Rheims  in  496,  and  the  belief  that  the  holy 
oil  was  inexhaustible,  brought  Kings  of 
France  to  Rheims  for  their  anointing  for 
more  than  eight  hundred  years — thirty-one 
of  them  in  all.  Charles  VII  was  the  eight- 
eenth of  his  line  to  come.  And  when  Jeanne 
brought  him  thither,  the  Cathedral  as  we 
know  it  now  was  even  then  a  venerable  pile, 
with  two  hundred  years  of  history  behind  it, 
including  nine  coronation  pageants. 

Miss  Mary  and  Jean  stood  a  long  time  in 
the  square  gazing  in  awe  at  that  fagade  which 
has  been  called  "  perhaps  the  most  beautiful 
structure  produced  in  the  Middle  Ages,"  and 
looking  from  it  up  into  the  face  of  Jeanne  as 
she  perpetually  reins  her  bronze  horse  before 
the  portals  and  summons  France  to  acclaim 
its  sovereign. 


KINGS  WERE  CROWNED       143 

The  early  masses  were  over,  and  they  had 
the  interior  practically  to  themselves.  Miss 
Mary  showed  a  disposition  to  linger  before 
the  priceless  and  very  ancient  tapestries  which 
hang  on  the  walls  of  the  aisles,  but  Jean 
whispered  that  she  was  anxious  to  get  up 
into  the  choir  where  the  coronation  cere- 
monies had  taken  place.  A  statue  of  The 
Maid  now  marks  the  spot  where  she  stood, 
banner  in  hand,  to  see  her  King  crowned. 
Jean  peered  through  the  iron  grills  at  the  side 
entrance  to  the  choir  and  saw  that  a  man  was 
there,  close  by  Jeanne's  statue,  as  he  had 
promised  he  would  be. 

Then  she  drew  Miss  Mary  towards  her,  and 
whispered  in  her  ear  : 

"Please  wait  inside  for  me.  I'll  be  back 
in  a  few  minutes." 

.  .  .  "  I  know  it  will  seem  to  them  that 
the  '  few  minutes'  are  awfully  few,"  she  told 
her  parents  more  than  an  hour  later  when  she 
and  they  had  made  a  tour  of  the  exterior,  and 
were  in  the  nave  wondering  if  they  ought  to 
intrude  upon  what  they  felt  sure  was  another 
coronation. 

But  as  she  spoke,  the  anointed  came 
towards  them,  walking  in  the  south  aisle, 
their  faces  full  of  divine  ecstasy. 


144    EVERYBODY'S  BIRTHRIGHT 

Jean's  eyes  filled  with  joyful,  grateful  tears. 
She  laid  her  face  against  her  father's  arm, 
and  when  he  bent  his  head  to  kiss  her,  she 
murmured,  with  a  happy  sob  in  her  voice : 

"  God  lead  us  all  to  where  our  crowns  are 
waiting." 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


